Found
by holmzesh
Summary: The Dark Tower series' ending was expertly crafted, but as implied, cannot stand forever. Based on the laws of Keystone time, we cannot exist present-day until this paradox is resolved. This project explores what the final ending to Roland's' quest could look like, guided by the original series and new content. A more detailed explanation is outlined in the author's forward.
1. Author's Forward

**Author's Forward**

 _ **(Argument)**_ _  
_

Fellow constant reader, hear me, I beg—I am not a _writer_.

However, like our Wordslinger at the start of his Dark Tower volumes, I need a moment here to introduce, argue even, why this project exists, and _must_ exist for us all to still be alive.

I started this venture forever ago after I finished reading the Dark Tower series. As much as I like to think I crank out a good whopper of my own once and a while, this is my first fanfiction, so bear with me. This project examines how the Keystone world from the Tower novels would exist presently, given that it is now 2018 instead of 1999, many years after the gunslinger opened the "Roland" door at the end/start/end of his quest. This work adds a (hypothetical) new chapter to the DT series that takes place after _The Dark Tower_ based on how Keystone time functions. This is where a new DT story must occur, and I hope to show you why without changing the original story.

Just as I'm not a writer, I'm also not someone who thinks he's the next coming. I'm no Brown, Grisham, or, in this case, King. I'm just a guy—with too many dreams and not enough hours to chase them, and a brain that won't shut up about Keystone time.

But since we're getting to know each other, the first "adult" novel I ever read was _It,_ which scared the hell out of me. King's ability to take his readers through anything imaginable, reach an end, and still leave them hanging by an oh-so-thin thread begging for more was intoxicating. Yet, King's way was also different from others—instead of thread, he used dental floss. I've been a King fan ever since.

Despite that, I ironically haven't always been a Dark Tower fan. My first encounter with the series was in 1995 in a used hole-in-the-wall bookstore in State College. I found _The Gunslinger_ , had heard of the DT series, but the hole-in-the-wall didn't have any other Tower volumes. Given the book's slim length I knew I'd be through it in no time, and given my wallet's slim weight, I couldn't afford a second book to keep me busy, so I skipped the Dark Tower altogether.

Two years later at Wal-Mart (the hole-in-the-wall had moved on, say sorry) I almost walked right into a display for _Wizard and Glass_. I remembered _The Gunslinger_ from before, searched the shelves for the other books, but only found _Wastelands_. The bright and colorful display worked its magic and I bought _Wizard_ without another thought. In my mind, it was a (thicker) new King title—I could catch up.

Ignorant of my blasphemy, I settled in to read my new book at the end of the day, only to end my reading at the beginning. King's "argument" deterred me greatly. I suddenly felt like a kid at Christmas who had beat his parents in getting up, sneaking to the living room, knowing that I could see everything right then if I wanted, but also knowing that if I waited, the surprise would be much greater. This became one of my favorite and paradoxical life-truths: the joy of anticipation is often more satisfying than the pleasure we experience from an actual outcome. Getting started with the Dark Tower was not going well.

I forewent reading _Wizard_ and instead went to one of the big chains, easily finding the other Tower books in stock and in paperback (my slim wallet said thank ya). By the time I got back to _Wizard_ I was all but obsessed. I swore I could "stop anytime I wanted" and that I'd never become a "Tower Junkie" as it came to be known to fans, but I was hooked alright—and badly.

Years of me denying my "problem" set in, during which the last books were released. I re-read the early books in preparation, devoured the final three just as eagerly, and then listened to the whole damn thing on audiobook to make sure I didn't miss anything. It was epic! I finally admitted I had a "Tower problem" to my friends and they got into the DT series, the enabling bastards.

Yet, something wasn't right. Somewhere beneath my awareness, there was a "thing" that was just _off._ It started like a small pebble in my shoe that nagged me until it felt like a tumor that I couldn't ignore.

It was King's dental floss.

Simply put, the story couldn't end where it did. This wasn't about how it ended or why it ended—but because the laws of Keystone time mandated it couldn't end where and when it did. It was literally impossible, making the end of DT7 an ending _point_ , but not the final destination.

Having learned from my _Wizard_ experience, I make a similar case before we start. My argument isn't about things missing from the series or the way it all ended. It's also not that there should a happily-ever-after ending that King warned us against before his infamous "Coda." That was just King pulling out the dental floss, and we were dealt a conclusion that was unexpected and horrific. It also worked, and frankly, Roland deserved no better (i.e. we as readers deserved no better).

It was perfection.

However, parts of the ending are exactly why the story can't end where it did. Per Keystone time "laws," characters like Stephen King and Roland can only exist in Keystone worlds where there are no "do-overs," (i.e. "Keystone time" is linear or "one way"). Thus, there could be no 2018 with Stephen King in it if Roland never resolves his quest, as time couldn't have moved past 1999 otherwise. This is because each time the gunslinger opens the "Roland" door and is sent back to the desert, everything else also "resets" with him. The only other explanation as to why we could be here in 2018 would be that Roland called off the quest completely after freeing the breakers on one of his trips, given that it was unnecessary for him to gain the Dark Tower. But, I think we all agree that Roland wasn't quitting his day job anytime soon.

There is more to say about this, but for now it's time to get to the journey ahead, which I hope you enjoy. If justification seems necessary after we've made the trip, then you'll find it close to the ending when we get there. That said, I do not hold the answers to the Dark Tower—nor do I profess to. In addition, what I have written here is by no means "King quality." I only profess to yielding to my own call to the Dark Tower so that another possible segment to the story could exist…because I exist in Keystone America with Stephen King in a year that shouldn't exist yet.

I have spent more time than I care to admit reading and researching the DT series and related DT titles for reference. My hope is that the cadence and structure of this story is at least similar to what I felt while journeying though Roland's world with King at the helm, who is certainly a more capable steward than I. Translation: this is just for fun—mere suggestion based on an epic by a real writer who is a master at the craft. But I can't hold on to this paradox any longer. I mean no infringement on King's epic. I only come—commala—as a catharsis to what can make our place in time correct.

The information in this manuscript is accurate as far as I am aware (but don't shoot me if it's not). I'm posting the first chapters of this at the same time, the goal being to post additional chapters every two weeks-ish (I feel there will be seven or so—I'm still working on the last segments) for those interested. And with that, my argument is made, fellow constant reader.

May I now invite you to the field of Can'-Ka No Rey at sunset? Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last gunslinger of our time, is at last coming to his fabled Dark Tower and all of its secrets. And speaking of the series' ending—may I suggest you re-read the last chapters if you've not visited End-World in a while? Those old stomping grounds may help to set us on properly.

As always, ka is rolling like a wheel. To me, dear Tower followers—to me! And see this project. See it very well.

I tell Stephen King thank-ya, and wish you well.

"Holmsie"

February 20, 2005 (Revised August 1, 2018)


	2. Chapter 1: Resumption

**First Chapter**

 **The Return**

 **1**

See this.

See it very well, I beg.

Here and now, just at the cusp of sunset, on the greatest of his days, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last remaining gunslinger of our time, is finally walking through the expanse of Can'-Ka No Rey and to his destiny—to his _ka_. Roland, for the first time in recent memory, is nearly _skipping_ , all but jogging the remaining ground between the rock pyramid where he and Patrick had stood against the Crimson King, and the vast red field that he has seen thousands of times before in his dreams—dreams so vivid they had seemed real.

For a moment his soul is light, the quest all but complete, and no trouble is in his road. In fact, there is nothing that Roland Deschain is thinking about at this very instant—not even the interior of his mythic grand Tower that, for those who were a part of his journey, took precedence over their own lives. It is an unsettling, unnatural peace that is both foreign and relieving.

Here and now, Roland has no thoughts other than moving one foot in front of the other to at last bring him to the very door of the Dark Tower. The culmination of all existence looms on the horizon, and at last, Roland of Gilead feels truly free. After what has seemed like centuries of questing, fighting, and dreaming, the gunslinger begins his approach to the base of the massive sooty Tower that has called to him his entire life.

As always, ka is watching, and ka is seeing very well. So too, the progenitors to the line of the Eld watch from the folds of time as the gunslinger's cracked boots create tiny clouds of dust as he nears the periphery of Can'-Ka No Rey.

They wait, they see, and they all say thank-ya.

 **2**

It was as he always thought and dreamt it to be. As he jogged the path between the roses, the majestic flora raised their petals to greet their master so long away. The gunslinger raced past, completely spent, yet as alert as ever he had been. His mind, once consumed by all that had been his epic quest, now found the fact that he would actually gain the Dark Tower somehow laughable, but the roses of Can'-Ka No Rey lifted their song as he strode past all the same.

The roses' song was a soft, warm humming that combined with their intoxicating scent, the combination of which left Roland's arms covered in gooseflesh. It was the sight, smell and sound of complete serenity and victory woven into one overpowering sensation. He glanced to his right hand and the wrap he had made with some of the remaining deer hide that had been in Ho Fat II and then to the balcony where the Crimson King had stood seemingly only moments ago. There, the King's red eyes, eternally doomed to gaze over the roses bounced and glared at Roland with hatred. The gunslinger paused on the path, recalling Patrick's magic eraser, and wondered what had become of the King's body. He thought the most likely destination to be the space _between_ the doors and interstices to other wheres and whens— _t_ _odash_ space. The Red King had certainly deserved far worse, but that was ka as well.

' _Aye, great tyrant,'_ Roland thought at him, ' _ka has cast you aside and has moved on.'_

As he realized there was nothing left to stop him a sense of freedom washed over him, and Roland again felt _human_ standing in the shadow ofthe Dark Tower. It was as if he felt this for the first time since being a boy, when he had little concern other than how to sneak into the Great Hall of Gilead with his ka mates during festivals and to dream of becoming a gunslinger someday like his father.

Long decades of years had passed since the freedom of childhood, so Roland was as a child now in reverence of that memory, and he ran ahead straight and true, remembering his father's face very well, laughing like a boy in the brilliance of a Gileadian summer afternoon.

 **3**

The gunslinger looked towards what may have once been true west and saw the sun was just beginning to sink to the horizon. _'It has_ always _been at sunset,'_ he thought, remembering his countless dreams of coming to the Tower.

It had to be now.

He quickened his pace and raised his voice over the hum of the roses.

"I AM ROLAND DESCHAIN OF GILEAD, SON OF STEPHEN AND GABRIELLE DESCHAIN, DINH TO THE KA TET OF NINETEEN, THAT OF THE ELD AND THE _WHITE_ AND I COME NOW, FINALLY TO THE DARK TOWER AT SUNSET!"

He made long strides, his head held high, the roses' song ringing across Can'-Ka No Rey.

And he called out the names of his comrades:

* "I come in the name of Steven Deschain, he of Gilead!

"I come in the name of Gabrielle Deschain, she of Gilead!

"I come in the name of Cortland Andrus, he of Gilead!

"I come in the name of Cuthbert Allgood, he of Gilead!

"I come in the name of Alain Johns, he of Gilead!"

"I come in the name of Jamie DeCurry, he of Gilead!

"I come in the name of Vannay the Wise, he of Gilead!

"I come in the name of Hax the Cook, he of Gilead!

"I come in the name of David the Hawk, he of Gilead and the sky!"

"I come in the name of Susan Delgado, she of Mejis!"

"I come in the name of Sheemie Ruiz, he of Mejis!"

"I come in the name of Pere Callahan, he of Jerusalem's Lot and the roads!"

"I come in the name of Ted Brautigan, he of America!"

"I come in the name of Dinky Earnshaw, he of America!"

"I come in the name of Aunt Talitha, she of River Crossing!"

"I come in the name of Stephen King, he of Maine!"

"I come in the name of Oy, the brave, he of Mid-World!"

"I come in the name of Eddie Dean, he of New York!"

"I come in the name of Susannah Dean, she of New York!"

"I come in the name of Jake Chambers, he of New York, whom I call my own true son!"

"I am Roland of Gilead, and I come as myself; _you will open to me_." *

Suddenly in the distance, perhaps from inside the Dark Tower itself, came a long, noble horn blast so powerful that Roland felt it vibrating his bones. The fanfare rose in an awesome rumble that reminded the him of the sonic boom that trailed Blaine the mono, and then cast out across Can'-Ka's roses in pulsating sonic waves. Roland watched as the expanding circumference of those waves crossed the crimson field, swaying the roses as they passed.

He felt a physical _thud_ in his body as the waves passed him. The ground shook slightly, but the roses continued their song despite the interruption. Then Roland's eyes widened as tiny beams of yellow light streamed out of each rose's center throughout Can'-Ka, adding a beautiful deep golden hue to the sunset.

Roland could see the ground for the first time with the roses standing upright, and saw that the roses weren't planted but _placed_ in designated plots within a massive circumference of gray metal. This metal appeared to encompass all the ground beneath the roses and spanned the distance from the Dark Tower to the outer edges of Can'-Ka No Rey. Roland smiled. The metal looked like what Eddie would have called an _'anthenna'—_ something that received and magnified an incoming _sigul._ He looked high above and watched the paths of the beams passing over the apex of the Dark Tower. The guardian Shardik had worn a "hat" or _'anthenna'_ that had given him power. Here, unknown wheels from Shardik's lair, it seemed the roses were camouflaging an amplifier/antenna for the Dark Tower and the Beams.

The horn blast reached its crescendo, faded, and Roland suddenly stopped in his tracks.

' _In my dreams that blast is from my horn,'_ he thought, thinking of the great Horn of Eld, and how it had sounded long ago on the slopes of Jericho Hill. He recalled a dream where he had the horn with him in the Mohain desert and that had been so vivid that he could still remember how it felt in his hands.

The entire world seemed to take pause. The gunslinger's eyes, already drawn half closed from the glare of countless sunsets, stared blankly ahead to the Dark Tower's enormous base. Everything was still as the horn blast faded, leaving only the hum of the roses. Roland felt the hairs in his nose stiffen. There was an odd smell hanging in the air that he could not place, but that was very familiar.

' _It's different than in my dreams,'_ he thought, without entirely knowing why.

Suddenly something felt wrong about being here—something was _missing_.

He had seen enough traps in his time, and he wouldn't be led into one when he was all but at the door of the Dark Tower. He scanned the crimson field and the Tower, finding he was alone other than what remained of the Crimson King's eyes, which continued to blink and bounce above his balcony. The gunslinger remembered Andy, messenger robot (many other functions) and his blinking blue eyes. They had been blinking— _laughing—_ even when Eddie had shot them out of his metal head.

In a blur Roland pulled leather, leveling the gun of his father at the bouncing red dots in the distance. Perhaps this was what felt so wrong. Despite the distance, with no wind he was sure he could shoot twice, re-holster, and watch the Crimson King's eyes pop like grapes all in less than half a second.

As his finger crept towards the hammer he felt resistance. Something still felt wrong— _missing_ — but perhaps it was not the King's eyes. He again saw how quickly the sun was reaching the horizon and remembered the prophecy—he was to come to the Dark Tower at sunset.

A thought occurred to him which made him smile. He holstered his gun for the final time and turned away from the balcony. Roland thought, and also _felt,_ that the Crimson King could still see out of his eyes. Like little peephole windows from whatever terrible realm Patrick had sent him, the gunslinger felt that the King could still be watching.

Roland decided to let him watch as he claimed the Dark Tower.

' _To hell with your damn prophecy, maggot,'_ Cort said in his mind, _'move your ass.'_

Roland moved.

 **4**

After a short distance Roland saw a large concrete slab beside the Dark Tower. When the path through the roses came to the Tower's base, he saw a massive door at the center of the slab, which looked exactly like the picture hanging in Sayre's office. Except—it was not _exactly_ the same.

The picture in the office showed nineteen steps leading up to the Tower's base, but Roland saw no steps. Nor was he surprised—the nuances of the number nineteen seemed to have died when his ka tet started dying—and when Stephen King had been saved to write again. It was no matter. When King started writing again he had written Roland alive and the others to their deaths or solitude. No one would ever see that the steps didn't exist. The victory was bittersweet.

Roland's boots made humble _clicks_ on the concrete despite the soothing song of the roses. The mammoth door, near white with the age of untold time stood stalwart and un-wielding on massive rusted hinges. It was made from ghostwood, and he supposed that more than a few ghosts slept within its deep grains. Just like other doors in his quest, there was an inscription in the center, and Roland knew the markings well.

[symbol for] ' _Unfound.'_

The Tower's call was overwhelming. He swallowed hard, reached up, and tried the huge handle rusted into the ghostwood. It didn't move at all.

Then, as if he had simply forgotten a formality, Roland remembered his gun. He pulled it from its smooth holster, ran his depleted right hand gently over the barrel, and felt the power within the cool metal. He placed it at the stoop without further hesitation.

He next pulled Aunt Talitha's cross from his neck, and stared at it as if it were a lost relic. Dropping to one knee, he said aloud, "I am finally here, Talitha, Old Mother, and I speak your name very well here at the door to the Dark Tower." He considered it only a second longer and placed it on his gun.

At this, there was a loud _click_ and the gunslinger glanced up to see the engraved inscription blaze brightly for an instant then dim almost as quickly. It had changed, and now stood smoldering in the ghostwood as white with age as the door itself. It now read:

[symbol for] ' _Found.'_

And of course he finally was. He reached to try the door handle once more but there was no need. The door opened on its own, moaning in a low, extended _creeeeaaak_ and swung open to the end that Roland had sought his entire life.

* * *

Quoted citation:

King, S. (2005). _The Dark Tower_ (1st Scribner trade pbk. ed.). New York: Scribner. (pgs 801-802)


	3. Chapter 2: Reunion

**Second Chapter**

 **Reunion**

 **1**

It could have been anyone.

It could have been any person standing next to 2 World Trade Center's locker storage at any given time, in any given year. Given the millions of tourists that flock to the Center each year, the possibilities are truly endless.

Yet this is not just any given year.

This is the year of 1999, still several years away from an unspeakable tragedy that will end the lives of thousands and destroy the Trade Center's Twin Towers as ka sees them this day. But on this day, only one will loose their life in the World Trade Center. And although the rest of world will seem to barely notice such an insignificant death, it will mark the beginning of a tremendous final attempt to end _all_ lives in every where and every _when_.

Welcome, dear reader, to New York City.

 **2**

New Yorkers were not aware of this yet, but Wilma Mollack had arrived in midtown Manhattan. She was on a jaunt with her women's club to see the Big Apple because someone in the group thought this would be a good idea to do for their 1999 yearly club trip. To Wilma, that someone was a moron. Wilma had been to the city enough times to know the drill, including with the club, and she was bored to death with its pedestrian cliché of American tourism.

If one used the members in Wilma's club as litmus, people went to "NYC" to catch a show and grab a street _dawg_ —to cram into Times Square, The Rock Center and its skating rink, the streets of the theatre district and the assorted bus and boat tours that charged too much and told you too little. It also meant to pad around 5th Avenue with detours into the other main streets and shops on your way to Central Park, aimlessly gawking at designer shop windows where if you had to ask how much it _was_ too much, and to ogle over cases of paste Rolexes, chic sunglasses, and designer purses. If you asked Wilma Mollack, it was all just a tribute to viral materialism that was so overpriced in the stores that it eventually ran into the streets in a brummagem flood.

If you asked Wilma Mollack, that was just fine for the trite _other_ people in her group. Oh they had wanted her to accompany them along their typical, touristy route alright, but she would be no part of such monotony. Wilma was perfectly capable of finding her own experience in New York thank you very much, and she was bent on doing just that. It was a chance for her to sneak away and be on her own.

It was a chance for some ' _her_ time'—and she very much loved her ' _her_ time,' did Wilma Mollack.

Ignoring her comrades' pleas to the contrary—she was a single White female in New York after all, how _would_ she survive—and opting to hop a cab to lower Manhattan, Wilma instead made her way to the World Trade Center's famed Twin Towers. Wilma had never been to the financial district, nor had she ever gone into the World Trade Center Plaza, either of the Towers, or the hotel, but it was something she always wanted to do. She took her time exiting the cab, pushed back a goodly lock of her thick, tightly-curled red hair from her eyes, and stopped herself from looking up to see the Twin Towers like any other banal tourist. Wilma was committed to acting the part of a resident New Yorker, and she would make sure those around her would see just that. Even though her intention was to ascend the south tower to the Top of the World Observatory on the 107th floor with the rest of the day's tourist flock, she would make those in the street believe she was a local interested only in avoiding tourists and some spontaneous shopping at the Mall at the World Trade Center.

Having taken great care in not dressing like one of _them—_ one of the herd—Wilma fought to remember which of the Towers she would need to enter in order to reach her destination based on her research of the World Trade Center Plaza the night before. She struggled to remember which tower was north and which was south, which was 1 and which was 2 World Trade Center. Having paid the cabbie and kicking the door shut (as well as jilting him on his tip for being an incoherent prick), Wilma sighed loudly as if annoyed with existence itself, pushed her sunglasses to the top of her nose, and marched straight into the south Tower lobby. She passed a group of _them_ posing for snapshots in front of the entrance's marquis, and she flipped her designer scarf in a gesture of disapproval as paraded by.

As if she had done it every day for months, Wilma pushed past another group of _them_ waiting for the many elevators in the south Tower's expansive lobby still wearing her sunglasses. Taking care not to look and gawk at the lobby's fine accoutrements and design, she instead walked to the left of the elevator lines and stepped onto a descending escalator. After another flip of her hair Wilma raised a hand to her mouth, gave a short fake cough, and did a quick breath check.

She could still smell a hint booze in that breath, which explained why her research from last night was a jumbled mess in her mind. But to Wilma, who had been rationalizing her drinking for years, that would make her façade even more believable. New York was full of local day-drinkers—had to be with as many weirdoes that lived here—so what was there to lose in fitting in?

Her plan was to ride the escalator to the concourse mall, find a quiet corner, and start _her_ time. She would spruce up that breath with a fresh hit of whiskey, and then take one of the mall elevators to the Top of the World on her own, and create an adventure there in the lounge under a name and persona that was not hers, sans _herd._ How stupid they all were—waiting in the lobby in lines that would take _forever_ to service—when even an idiot could think to find a mall elevator less in demand and ride it to the Top. Pre-purchasing a ticket to the observatory now seemed like one of the best ideas Wilma had ever had. She turned over her shoulder and watched _them_ continue to file into the ticket rope lines like moths to a light in the darkness. ' _Fools,'_ she thought as the escalator continued towards the subterranean mall, and she smiled.

Yet those that understand ka know that it is like a wind, and that even the most thorough plans will mean nothing if they stand in ka's path. Had Wilma been more focused on her research the night before and less on her liquor, she would have learned that no elevators in the Trade Center's Mall serviced the observation deck, and she would have never gone down to the mall in the first place. Ka, do ya not see it? Wilma spared a final glance to the lobby as the escalator continued down and the last sunlight of the day swept up past her face.

It would be the last daylight she would ever see.

 **3**

Wilma was not ignorant to the hypocrisy in her itinerary—she understood that she was really no different from _them_ in what she was doing. _'But the fun is in The Show and no one ever has to know.'_ This is something she had thought to herself in other such "her time" errands, and she would tell a completely different story to her women's club later than would likely happen at the Top deck. Plus, tomorrow would come and Wilma would never see any of the people from the Trade Center's south tower again. Yet, she would know that she had marched into that tower as if she owned it, and if she fooled even a few of the stupid flock, it meant a job well done.

This was exactly why she had taken the cab and walked into tower 2's lobby instead of taking the PATH from further uptown, which was cheaper by a mile and stopped near the center of the mall. _"The Show"_ was the feeling of getting away with such grandiose behavior, and this made her feel deeply alive, and in powerful control. As she rode the escalator a hunger awakened between her thighs as she thought of her parade past the elevator lines. This bit of ' _her_ time' felt like a success already.

Wilma decided right then that she was going to let one of the traveling business men that trolled her hotel's bar buy her drinks while she teased him until they closed that night. Then she would take him to his room and fuck his stupid brains out. Not because _he_ would want it—never think it. But because she wanted to, because she could, and because there were always lonely pricks with too much cash thinking they could buy love in big city hotels. It was the perfect trap for such men. Show them a piece of rope with a noose on the end of it dressed like a one night stand, and they walk right into it willingly.

Whoever "he" was, he would be absolutely _begging_ for it by the end—they all did—and that was alight. But she would be in control, she would decide when and what was done, and only after she'd had her fill of the good stuff from the top shelf. Then he would pay—both for her expensive scotch and for underestimating (because they always did) her. She would hold off as long as she could bear, but when the time came when she needed it most, _then_ he would get it. He would get _her,_ and all of her, and she would devour him just as long as she wanted until she couldn't walk right the next morning and he couldn't screw again for another month.

 **4**

Wilma strode off of the escalator, sunglasses in place, and into the bright light of the World Trade Center's mall. She marched past a new flock of _them_ that were no doubt busying themselves as her fellow women-clubbers were midtown on Fifth. She rounded a corner near a high-end clothing trap and paused, looking as inconspicuous as possible. There were so shitting many of _them._

She was becoming increasingly more aware of her shaking hands and her nerves now, excited and pulsing with anticipation. Wilma felt the weight of the flask in her coat pocket and experienced a blend of relief and irritation. She had planned to get half a buzz on before going up to Top of the World so she wouldn't have to blow a fortune on starting a good bender she'd finish at the hotel later, and she was not one to break plans. _"The Show"_ simply had to go on. But with this many of _them_ around, one was apt to notice a woman standing by herself in the middle of the mall's floor sipping out of a flask—especially if one was a security officer like those Wilma had seen standing around the periphery.

Further past the storefront Wilma stole around the boutique's opposite corner and stopped when she saw another pair of descending escalators. The foot traffic was much less on the westernmost side of the mall, with many of the herd seeming to flow from the PATH station through the mall and to the Twin Towers. She watched several people ride up from below. What was down there? She had not researched any floors _below_ the mall the night before, or if she had, those memories were probably as gone as the fifth of Dewar's she had put down. Either way, there appeared to be even less of _them_ around where the escalator let off, so that was encouraging.

' _But the fun is in The Show and no one ever has to know,'_ she reminded herself. Already uncomfortable with how long she had lingered, likely looking like someone that didn't know what she was doing, Wilma stepped onto the moving stairs without another thought.

 **5**

After a longer ride down and a quick pass through a metal detector run by a security guard that looked as if the most he could do to stop a perp would be to sit on him, Wilma found herself standing in front of a very interesting thing indeed. She wondered what the hell storage lockers were doing in such a grand example of Americana. The Trade Center was such a landmark of engineering pride and of sociological, patriotic, and global importance. She was in the presence of all of this nobility and yet there were long-term storage lockers stashed below its majestic mall like a lowly bus terminal? This puzzled her, as the lockers looked so out of place that they may as well have been transplanted from another place or time.

Then an idea came to her—one of _those_ ideas that had been coming more and more lately. It was self-serving, really, she mused, but if the shoe fit… The game in NYC was money, honey, and you made it anyway you could any _where_ you could. Never mind the fact that these lockers cheapened the grandeur of the majestic towers, or that they'd be more useful in the actual World Trade Center hotel or closer to the PATH station where commuters would be more plentiful. if you asked her, but why not try to steal some more money here, too? She rolled her eyes as she realized there probably were more lockers in all the Trade Center locations—likely many more than she saw here even.

Wilma had never considered herself an ideologue, politically informed, or feminist, but recently she had been listening more and more to political talk and television that focused pretty far left of the isle and it was throwing her mind in places it had never been before—places her mind liked quite a bit. She almost wished that some of her fellow Clubbers, maybe Gail and Eva, were with her to see this sacrilege, for right there it was for anyone to see—blatant capitalistic wealth generation at the cost of lower middle class tourists just like Wilma Mollack. Here in the most unlikely of locations, away from the heavy foot traffic and access entrances, was yet another example of how those lower on the totem pole were regularly pillaged by the upper one percent.

Wilma's cheeks flushed as she thought it most likely that the people behind this were the typical suspects—corporations run by upper-class White conservative men like those in her hotel lobby bar at night flaunting their financial aptitude. Men like that were bad for the Movement, to the overall liberal ideology, and to lonely, susceptible single women like her. She spat on the ground in disgust.

She walked just past the main face of the lockers, and not really caring if anyone was watching her anymore at that point, Wilma pulled a large plastic flask from her overcoat and sipped at the crisp liquid inside. It was her recover staple—Canadian Club—because it was light enough to not make her vomit after going hard the night before. The liquor quickly fueled the heat already in her cheeks. As the whiskey hit she asked herself if she really didn't care for politics and was only in the Women's Club for the socializing. It really was no wonder that she drank, was it?

She was considering this when it all happened.

 **6**

Far away at sunset in another Keystone where, the sounds of terrible screaming filled the air—carnal shrieks that sounded as if someone was being wiped from the face of the earth.

And of course, someone was.

These screams and the accompanying brilliant pain came forward and filled the small dark space where the glam had slept for a short time. * "If another Beam breaks it might wake up and work mischief," the old man had said as he had closed it in locker number 883, "but if another Beam lets go…" *

The man the Calla called Pere had been very wrong—as were most mortal men when it came to the workings of the wizard's rainbow and the multiverse.

Black Thirteen, the most lethal bend of the rainbow, had no individual identity per se, but it was a volatile portal containing dark magic that was both very much alive, and very much aware. Crafted by Maerlyn himself and passed to his son, Marten Broadcloak, Black Thirteen had been in the possession of many, but had served none. Even when harnessed by the Crimson King and forces of the Red, only Black Thirteen's will had been done. Long had mere humes yearned to harness Black Thirteen's power as their own, and for long had they failed.

Each glam of the rainbow represented each Beam Guardian, and within each, a magic and spirit that gave it life and power. Black Thirteen represented the Dark Tower, however, and could open doors to anywhere, and any _when_ because it was connected to the Dark Tower through the medium of todash space. Thus, its will was always served, and it had served none.

For countless years Black Thirteen had been linked to the Crimson King's ka, even before the King had went mad and destroyed the glams he had managed to find before then killing most of his servants and ultimately himself. When united with the Crimson King, the two came to feel and exist _through_ each other, like two people standing on either side of a two-way mirror, close enough to be able to see through the reflection to the other side, but still separate, so were the King and Black able to perceive and experience the other, separated only by the ethereal pane of todash.

All those years ago, joining with the Crimson King had seemed an ideal alliance in the battle for the Dark Tower, but the King became lost in Black Thirteen increasingly often. It became another eye as he used it to monitor developments that would engender the war that fell Gilead and all of In-World, the initiative to harness the power of the Breakers, and of course, the campaign to ultimately collapse the Dark Tower. The Crimson King became so engrossed in the glam that eventually he cared for little else. As he used Black Thirteen's vision and its doors to oversee all of his plans, Black Thirteen came to understand King Red's vision for the future. It became clear to Black Thirteen that this vision was distorted—very unlikely to come to pass, for the glam represented the Dark Tower, and saw far ahead of even the Crimson King's abilities.

Black Thirteen had thus used its will to be moved from the King's possession. Marten the enchanter believed he had given the Black glam to the priest at the way station of his own volition, but Black Thirteen had needed this to happen in order to escape the from the Crimson King, in order to be given to the gunslinger's ka-tet, so that it could enchant the vagrant Mia to steal it to New York, all to be eventually placed right where it was at this second. For at this second, this was the only way to keep any sliver of hope alive.

Allowing the Red King to again find Black Thirteen was extremely risky. It could be that their alliance would again be powerful enough to try to claim the Dark Tower. Of course, the King also could smash it to shards in his madness as he had the others because the King was not human and was un-dead. But now in the present, Black Thirteen waited for the Crimson King, and soon would call to him. "The Black Tower," that is, the tower at 2 Hammarskjöld Plaza, that housed the representation of the Dark Tower in the Keystone world was extremely close now. A mere mile away, its power easily radiated to where the glam waited, making contacting the King all but effortless.

The time to reunite had come at last.

The Black could very much _feel_ the Crimson King's anguish and suffering. Black Thirteen also sensed the Red King's energy force as he cast it out into todash space, desperate for any anchor while his body was literally scratched out of End-World, where if he were ended, he would cease to exist.

The King's pain from his physical form bled over into todash space as he wildly searched for any purchase, any hope, as Patrick's eraser made him gone. As the Crimson King suffered on one Tower in a Keystone World, Black Thirteen awakened in its own Tower in another Keystone World, and the two were suddenly closer than they had been in an age. Instantly each sensed the other, and the inside of the glam's glass awoke and flooded with the reflection of a sea of red petals rising to meet a deeply orange sky, interrupted only by a stalwart, blackened Tower.

This meant the ancient prophecy had been fulfilled. Roland of Gilead was coming to the Dark Tower at sunset, and at that moment, the Crimson King was still very much alive.

Time was very short, but there was still one hope for victory.

 **7**

Wilma replaced her flask and read the plaques near the bottom of the lockers' front panel. Just as she suspected, the usual corporate slime were behind this abomination—G.E., DeWalt, Panasonic, and of course, North Central Positronics. It was no surprise, especially with NCP, who seemed to have their filthy hands in just about everything. Straightening herself, Wilma walked around the corner of the assembly and saw a sign posted above the lockers that read:

 **Long term storage, 10-36 mos.**

 **Use key!**

 **Management accepts no responsibility for lost property!**

That was when she heard the most disturbing sound she had ever heard in her life. It was a deep guttural moan, so dark and unfamiliar that it was more _feeling_ than something she heard. It filled her entire head and stole what color remained from her already pale complexion. Her head erupted in an instant headache and her heart quivered, skipping inside her sizeable chest.

' _What the shit,'_ she thought, and then began openly weeping for no reason. She massaged her temples—friggin' migraine, most likely—and told herself she was just starting one hell of a hangover from last night's binge. Wilma, who experienced some degree of hangover everyday, thought about her hands shaking on the escalators, waking up still drunk that morning, and almost missing the Club's breakfast meeting.

There were some people passing the front side of the lockers, but no one seemed to hear what Wilma was hearing or feel what she was feeling—they just continued on like the stupid _herd_ they were, oblivious to the rest of the world. Wilma imagined with horror that she must really look like one of _them_ standing beside the lockers looking lost, alone, and vulnerable. A wide steel support beam ran floor to ceiling beside the lockers, and she was more or less behind it, but Wilma knew better than to think that was why no one was stopping—this _was_ New York, after all.

She moved closer to the locker block, placed her left forearm on its cool steel surface, and rested her head against it. Wilma felt the C.C. settling into her stomach with its soothing warmth and regained some composure. But at the same time her head began to flood with thoughts that she didn't understand and couldn't control. She felt a vibration under her arm on the locker's side panel, and thought jokingly that it felt like there was one hell of a vibrator inside. Or maybe it was a huge cellular ringing on vibrate to enhance personal pocket—or locker—pleasure.

' _Hello? It's just us, the meddling conservative White men of America, calling the Trade Center dungeon! We're about to align ourselves for rendezvous, do ya ken that, you ka mai sons of bitches? And is that Wilma Mollack standing there? Is she still in charge of the sauce? Cause we could use some of that up here, say true! Can ya say Can'-Ka! The Tower People say Gawd bomb!'_

Wilma shuttered as her stomach wretched. It was if her mind was on autopilot, thinking _for_ her, but _through_ someone or _something_ else at the same time. It was horrible and terrifying to feel such a lack of control. Wilma's right hand was still shaking, so she righted herself, pulled the flask back out of her trench coat and downed another generous nip without a thought.

It was always easier to bite off the second snort.

She stood that way for a moment, swaying where she stood with an almost comical blank expression. Her eyes cleared somewhat with the fresh booze and she saw that right in front of her, locker number 883 was vibrating enough to shake its small door. Actually, locker number 883 was absolutely _thrumming_ with that sound—that terrible, guttural drone that now also had some kind of God-awful bells or chimes ringing with it. _Kamen,_ is what they were called—whatever the hell they were. She vomited a small stream of warm acid and whiskey into her mouth and swallowed it again before she knew she had done it.

Wilma blindly fumbled to find her aspirin bottle and pulled it from her purse, sure if she waited another second, her head would split open. She always kept a sizable bottle with her since this was part of the hangover management. Still, it took an eternity to locate because she could somehow not look away from 883's door. _'Those numbers add up to nineteen,'_ she thought for no reason as her hand found the bottle. She struggled with the lid and sighed helplessly when she dropped the container, spilling tiny white capsules forever across the floor. She bent over, patting her hand on the cold floor feeling for the pills, her eyes unable to move from locker 883.

She finally managed a small handful, stood up, and popped them all into her mouth. She felt so sluggish—as if she could only move very slowly. Wilma crunched down on the pills twice, and dumped a fresh slosh of liquor on top of them. She chewed twice again, unmindful of the small stream of white powder and whiskey that dribbled out of her mouth and onto her blouse, and swallowed the concoction in one gulp.

Her mind was racing and wild, suddenly filled with very graphic thoughts about other women and how she was far more attracted to them than men. Thoughts that she had promised never to consciously think about again. Then all at once her mind was thinking of it anyway and she was _glad_ that she was secretly batting for the other side—fucking men and their fucking man parts. So what if she might be a lesbian? She was voluptuous, single, and the men from the hotel bar wouldn't know either way. Little did they know they were secretly getting the ultimate stereotypical male sexual fantasy when she devoured them piece by piece. Nah, the only thing the men knew from those experiences was pain and defeat.

The _thrumming_ persisted from the locker, as if on a cycle and thumbing at the very threads of her sanity. She continued to stare at the center "8" in 883, all at once an awful dark light blazed out between the seams from behind the door. This light was so dark it hardly seemed noticeable, save the slight condensation in the damp air that reflected back its faint purple-black hue. Wilma took several steps backward with some effort, so the light would not touch her. She somehow knew that the light _couldn't_ touch her because if it did would take her to a deep, vast chasm for the rest of eternity.

' _Todash space,'_ she thought, jaw agape.

That was when Wilma felt her mind begin to slowly fade to a blankness. She went back to her purse and her shaking hands fumbled for a smoke. She put it to her lips and lit it, never seeing or caring about the 'No Smoking' signs hanging everywhere. She drew in a deep puff, never noticing she had lit the filter end of the thing, dropped her lighter, and then let out a sharp burp that tasted like astin. _'Aspirin,'_ she thought in a corrective voice. The cigarette dangled from her lower lip, the lit filter still smoldering.

Wilma looked in her periphery around the steel support beam for anyone else that was witnessing what was happening. There were no others that Wilma saw, of course. Not that there weren't people walking by the locker panels in the sub-basement of 2 World Trade Center in the _Keystone_ world. However, by that point, Wilma Mollack was no longer completely in a Keystone world, leaving behind a dim and translucent outline of herself leaning against the wall behind the lockers, looking drunk, lost, and abandoned. Where Wilma Mollack was at that point, she was standing alone in darkness.

And of course that was something called _ka_ as well.

 **8**

The Crimson King, as prophecy foretold, was mad, say true. But he was also _obsessed,_ which also made him cunningly alert to the smallest details.

The King of todash space had foreseen Roland's progress and raced to the Dark Tower ahead of him. He had been unable to resist the urge to attempt to open the Tower when he arrived, but he could not. Or at least, he wasn't able to at that point. Instead, he had triumphantly climbed to a balcony that faced what was once west, along the path of the bear's Beam, and planned his assault from higher ground. He had superior weapons at a vantage point that was out of range from even Eld's guns. Let the Dark Tower wait just a bit longer—having the upper hand on the shitting gunslinger was more important. Once the last gunslinger breathed no more, it would be no work at all to pluck his revolver—Eld's key to the Tower—from his dead body. And if Roland survived and gained the Tower despite the King's clear advantage, what of it? Roland of Gilead could no more kill him than fly like a bird, and as he would come to the Tower alone per the ancient prophecy, there were other ways to intercept him if necessary.

Of course, instead of victory had come carnal screaming, more than he thought possible, after the gunslinger had shot down all of his sneeches, while the idiot boy—the one that had escaped from Keystone Maine—demonstrated his own qualities. It was a terrible thing, as his _human_ body had felt at first as if it was being roughed with small, coarse stones, and then like scorching saws were carving out whole parts of this body. These sections of his body then faded, and finally _vanished_ right before his eyes. The pain of this execution of sorts was astounding, but even in his madness the King quickly discovered something worse than the pain and stench of his smoldering flesh—the sensation of existing in _two_ realms at the same time.

The remaining portion of his hume body that existed at the Dark Tower felt this pain as well as incredible heat from the burns on his skin. At the same time, the missing sections of his body became cold, _dim,_ as the chill of todash fell around him as he was erased from one world and cast into another.

The Red King was still screeching as this happened until he felt what seemed like a serrated carving blade rip across his neck and tear out his throat and voice. Damn the gods the shitting brat worked quickly. Brilliant pain raged in his mind, and then the bastard kid's eraser scraped that away as well with a foul scratching sensation, leaving only the Crimson King's eyes hovering on his balcony.

The duality was terrible, for at the Dark Tower there was _nothing_ —a complete void of any senses other than sight, but elsewhere the rest of his body still very much felt bright pain and heat. He could see through his eyes from the balcony and feel his hume body stirring and twitching somewhere within the folds of time.

In End-World, his eyes bounced as Roland Deschain of Gilead came out from behind the pyramid where he had hid with the boy and took his first steps towards Can'-Ka No Rey. This enraged the King, and he reached out with all of his energy and power, searching for anything—literally any possible last thread of hope—and realized an interesting, terrifying truth. For the first time in untold years, he felt the presence of Black Thirteen. It was somehow very close, and very _awake._

Inside his hume body, the antediluvian entity of the _Ram-Abbalah_ awakened as the King felt the Black glam's power surging very near to him. It was his _true_ form, and the form he took when he had reigned at his fullest, when his servants and minions fell at his feet, calling and praising his name—his _true_ name—as he sat on his throne. The _Ram Abbalah_ was the name of his _being,_ which, loosely translated to a moniker for a hume body was " _Ram-Tete,"_ ormore formally, "The Ancient Red King."

It would be his only chance.

As he adjusted to the unsettling split between existences, he learned he could somehow _move_ himself in each setting. The sensation of existing in two planes of the universe was horrifying, but the Crimson King discovered that his hume body could still serve a purpose. If he could exist in two realms at the same time, could he not then also move his ka force, that of the _Ram-Tete,_ between the two as well?

Los found that indeed he could, gazed over his balcony and saw the gunslinger standing among the roses, star struck with the reality of his coming. There would be no better time. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his hume body in the chasm void. It wasn't so hard really, one only need know the intricate workings of todash space to do so. It was just so— _uncomfortable._

Without wasting another second, the King reached out to his body as the _Ram_ , found it easily, and fell back through the small interstice that kept todash separate from the other existences. There was a jerking, falling sensation in his physical body as he was pulled back, and the King watched in terror as the outlines of his floating eyes remained where they were, bouncing and fixated on Roland, while he fell backwards and away, being pulled towards his broken hume form.

Then, there was only the darkness and numbing cold.

 **9**

The Crimson King, though without his eyes, felt his hume body respond as the presence of the _Ram_ filled its space. He also felt the Black glam was closer now. Long ago the Black had fallen from his possession, and had been silent to him for as long as he sought the Dark Tower. He had searched for Black Thirteen for time unknown, but he had only discovered six of the more inferior bends of the rainbow—which he had smashed to pieces in his rage. Now, however, he felt the Black calling—it's smooth, terrible _thrumming—_ and he felt a sliver of hope.

Even blind the Crimson King knew every inch of todash space as his own. The anesthetizing chill in the air was a relief on his skin, which was torrid and sore with scrapes and burns from the idiot boy's magic. His quivering hume body was quickly reaching the end of its path, but it would serve a bit longer he knew. Despite his physical appearance, the Red King still felt the reverence and admiration of the massive beasts that roamed todash as they watched their master from within the rifts.

The King opened his mouth to speak and found his voice was removed as well. No matter. One didn't need such things as speech or sight in one's own domain. Despite his injuries from the battle in Can'-Ka No Rey, he limped towards the pulse of Black Thirteen with all the majesty he could muster.

There was still perhaps something to be done.

 **10**

Inside locker 883, Black Thirteen suddenly felt the presence of the Red King. The King was reaching, searching, desperately _mad—_ and blind. The Crimson King's ka force, the presence of the _Ram-Tete,_ connected to Black Thirteen by an invisible thread, much as the _Dan-Tete_ had to Randall Flagg in Fedic before his death. This connecting fiber went ahead of the King straight and true, and with a mere flick of his mind, the link between the Red Master and the Black glam was complete and the two were finally united.

Through this connection the King became aware that the glam, now his _other_ eye, had been trapped in some box or enclosure. He also felt Black Thirteen begin to pull all the energy from around it inward, now to his _other_ body, as it sensed his presence. The strength of this merger increased until their combined force cut a slit through the interstice and into the delicate weave of todash space near where Black Thirteen was imprisoned. For todash wasn't so far away as people thought. Even hume dreams were a part of todash, so they were, and people didn't need the might of Black Thirteen to send them to scenes of human flight, uninhabited sexual conquests and horrible screaming nightmares now did they?

Nonetheless—to feel the Black's _thrum_ was the ultimate sensation, and the Crimson King relished this collective power as the hinges of todash began to loosen their hold. The King grinned, which pulled his blackened lips back to reveal a set of startling white fangs that flashed bright in the todash darkness.

 **11**

Wilma Mollack was indeed standing alone.

Although on the brink of madness herself, she had the presence of mind to realize that she was no longer standing inside 2 World Trade Center. Instead, she was standing alone in a vastly black space with noting but the island of lockers in front of her. The rest of the world had simply gone to dark.

A paralyzing fear seized her, and all at once everything was very _thin,_ though Wilma didn't understand what that meant. It could have been the whiskey, it could have been the damned lockers, but Wilma thought it was something else. _Someone_ else. And then it happened.

The front of locker 883 blew open with a bang, as if not needing to bother with the turn-key lock, and Wilma, frozen where she stood, was unable to look away.

"Oh…" she sighed as the white around her corneas flooded to red with blood,

… _Discordia."_

 **12**

Inside locker 883 was a globe. And to Wilma, it looked like nothing more than the kind of globe that people who lived "in the sticks" put on plastic pedestals in their front yards, only this one was black as the night.

Helpless to look away, Wilma watched as a thin beam of the same dark light shot out from the globe's core, searching the area around her like a dark laser. She tried to look away as the light scanned over her pale skin, but found she could move nothing. The light felt terrible, like bugs crawling over and digging into her skin as it passed over her body. Beyond the light inside the globe she saw a dim mist or fog the same purplish/black color as the light rotating around as if it were _breathing._

Then the fog in the globe suddenly cleared, and when it did, Wilma saw not just a globe, but an awful lid that peeled away to reveal a single, horrible glaring eye. It was hideous, she thought, a huge black eye filled with a blazing crimson center, from which the light beam came. It stared wide from within the glam right at her, right _into_ her. The laser-like light moved to the center of her chest and settled there. Instantly the feeling of bugs biting on her skin intensified and it felt like something much larger sank its fangs into her flesh. And just like that, Wilma Mollack was caught in Black Thirteen.

She tried desperately to move, swearing to anything that would listen that she would never drink a drop again if she could just get away, and then run as far from New York as possible. The dark light was above her heart, which was already weak with the strain of chronic smoking and drinking, but beating furiously in her chest. Wilma's adrenaline soared and her breath shortened noticeably, and she almost casually thought that this was what was like to be bitten by a enormous vampire.

Wilma felt her energy lessen and saw with some amazement that the slender light beam was pulsing with brighter colors that were moving from inside of her and into the black globe through the light beam. It looked like a thread, she thought, almost like a fiber-optic cable moving energy from one place to another. Her vision blurred next and her hearing faded in and out as the huge eye in the glam bounced and raged.

Wilma's knees buckled once, twice, but she held on for a moment longer. Her face began to wrinkle, slightly at first, but then it quickly became filled with deep troughs and valleys before being pulled tight as it shrunk against her round face. Suddenly her mind was filled with a great knowledge of many things, as if she were connected to many places and many people somehow all at the same time.

Roland Deschain of Gilead had reached the Dark Tower, whoever that was.

Jake Chambers was dead, Eddie Dean was dead, Oy of Midworld was dead, Pere Callahan was dead, Sheemie Ruiz was dead, Arthur Eld was dead, Mordred Deschain was dead, and Mia was dead, whoever they were.

Gail and Eva of Wilma's women's club had wondered from _them_ and into east Midtown where they were listening to Reverend Harrigan on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 46th Street, whoever he was.

Susannah Dean had left the path of the Beam, whoever she was, and Patrick Danville was walking back the path of the Beam, whoever he was.

And the Crimson King—Wilma's breath locked in her throat and her blood froze.

The Crimson King was _here_.

 **13**

It was something inside the black glass.

' _It's Black Thirteen,'_ Wilma's mind corrected.

Past the light beam and in the center of the raging eye was a small circle of red. Wilma had been unable to break away from staring into the hideous eye, and because of this she realized a curious thing. Though barely visible, Wilma saw that the red center of the eye was actually what looked like a field with a million roses in it. What had caught her attention was not the roses at first, but some rugged cowboy that was walking down a path between the flowers. This helped her to see the field for what it actually was.

' _Can'-Ka No Rey,'_ Wilma thought absently.

Her gut wretched again, and thick vomit purged through her clenched lips and trickled down her chin in chunks. Her eyes, brimming with blood, trickled thin trails of crimson from each corner, and Wilma's mouth began to tremble, as if trying to speak.

What came out was not her voice, but the voice of someone else—some possessed, enraged man who sounded beyond the point of madness. It was the same voice someone named Roland of Gilead had heard in his mind before his ka tet ambushed a placed called the Devar Toi. It came out mumbled and wet, but it came out true:

" _Resolution demands a sacrifice."_

At that point, Wilma Mollack was relieved of the awareness of her own existence. She never realized that her heart ceased beating and that her mind stopped thinking. There was just a final moment filled with gossamer emptiness—a literal nothing as the rest of her life was pulled from her through the dim light beam.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the threadlike light retracted through the eye's center. Wilma's body rocked awkwardly, her eyes blank and full of scarlet, and drying vomit on her chin. She was nearly mummified, her skin and features so sunken and desiccated that she looked as if she had been dead for years. The eye in Black Thirteen watched Wilma list to her right, then simply fall indifferently to the concrete floor, her skull crushing with a dry _crack_ from the impact.

 **14**

The Crimson King watched the shell of a once-large woman fall from in front of the small metallic box containing his glam eye, now raging with power from the woman's energy. The King felt that energy in his body as well, and he checked behind him to where his hume eyes remained, and he saw the gunslinger nearing the midpoint of Can'-Ka No Rey. If anything was to be done, it had to be now. If time slipped even just a fraction, all would be lost. He gripped the ephemeral thread he had thrown at the Black, relished the feeling of raw power racing into his body, and snapped it backward with a flick of his failing wrist.

Back in 2 World Trade Center in the year of the ninety and nine, the globe inside locker number 883 simply faded to a _dim_ outline of itself. Then it was gone altogether in a quick flash and _pop_ that sounded like an overloaded electrical fuse, leaving only the stench of burnt ozone.

To passersby it would have only appeared initially that one of the storage locker doors was open and damaged. Then, slowly, the faded outline of a desiccated, withered woman laying on the ground materialized behind the support beam and the front panel of lockers. A large uncapped plastic flask and a ticket to the Top of the World observation deck rolled onto the concrete from her large coat, the latter doused in a small stream of running whiskey.

Despite the passing foot traffic, it was some time before she was discovered.

* * *

Quoted references:

* King, S. (2004). Song _of Susannah_ (1st trade ed.). Hampton Falls, NH: Grant (page 337) *


	4. Chapter 3: (First) Steps

**Third Chapter**

 **(First) Steps**

 **1**

' _Hile, Roland Deschain…'_

An ephemeral sighing voice welcomed Roland as he passed through the Dark Tower's great doorframe and into the unknown that lay beyond. Awestruck, he gazed around, not expecting to see anyone, but helpless to keep from looking for a person to place with the voice. There was no one. _'...thee of the Eld…'_ Roland felt that he knew the voice, and that it belonged to the Dark Tower itself—as if it were a living, breathing creature—its timbre smooth, enticing and calm, but at the same time deliberate and horrible. He knew this without understanding, and he needed none. He _felt_ it, felt the Tower, felt their ka and energy uniting.

"Tower" he simply said, his voice gravel and glass.

' _Commala,'_ the Dark Tower replied in a voice that was neither male nor female, becking the gunslinger deeper into its chasm.

"I am come," Roland replied, "finally, I am come."

 **2**

As he walked further into the Dark Tower the gunslinger noticed was there was a soft, constant breath of air being gently dispersed all around him. This was similar to the Holmes Tower in New York where fresh air was blown into the rooms of the building through small vents and holes in the walls. This ever-present wisp of air floated above and past him, and into the great cylindrical void of the Dark Tower's open and soaring interior, which extended beyond what even his bombardier eyes could perceive.

Despite the circulating air, the Dark Tower smelled— _old_. And while such a relic should smell as such Roland supposed, it also reeked of mothballs and alkali—a rank scent he had despised most of his life. He paused and considered, searching for recognition. There was something else in the air as well that made Roland think of the wolves. It was a scent that had hung in the air after the battle in the rice fields of Calla Bryn Sturgis. What Susannah had called the odor escaped his memory, but its stench was familiar in his nostrils.

He took another step into the grand foyer that he had sought and sought again with its floor of pink polished marble. In the background, he heard a faint, low-pitched _humming_ noise—not exactly like the whirs of machines—but just a hum, simple as that. It was deep and soft, but it both soothed and unnerved him.

The rotunda was open, save for a large central pillar, which was cylindrical and shaded in the same hues and built in the same jagged design as the Dark Tower's exterior. The gunslinger guessed it to be nearly twenty feet in diameter, making it approximately one quarter the width of the Dark Tower's outermost wall. Pale blue light gleamed out at varying places from inside this pillar through narrow black slits in the cylinder's structure, which resembled the window-slits built into the Dark Tower.

' _A Tower within the Dark Tower,'_ Roland thought, walking towards the structure.

The humming noise intensified as he neared the giant pillar and he felt the hair on his neck and arms stiffen. He stopped when the hum rose to a thrum he could hear in his ears and feel in his body. This meshed with the airy song of the roses, and Roland closed his eyes. _This_ was the Dark Tower's song—it's _call—_ as he had heard it forever in his dreams. The deep bass from the pillar's humming combined with the mild heat of the blue light and heavenly treble of the roses and helped Roland to vividly remember these fantasies. Standing this close to the pillar Roland felt he could all but describe everything that would happen from this point forward because he had seen it before— _been_ here before in his dreams.

Roland looked up, knowing he would see that the pillar rose high above and beyond sight, perhaps even reaching all the way to the door that opened to the top room. He was seized with a vertigo he hadn't experienced since his palaver with the man in black in the golgotha of stones, and worlds upon worlds spun around and above him on the Dark Tower's axis. It felt like energies and power from each and every world, galaxy and universe culminated around the exact point where he stood, in the center of time and space.

Roland then looked to his right, knowing he would see the beginning of the massive grand staircase he had seen so many times before. Every fiber of his being begged him to begin his ascent, the climb he had made countless times in his dreams, until he finally reached the legendary top room, but he would linger just a moment longer, held in the awe that was the Dark Tower's song and call that—

Suddenly there was a deep crashing boom behind him, as powerful as thunder. Spinning on his heels, hands falling to a gun no longer there, the gunslinger saw that the great ghostwood door had slammed shut behind him. The peace and clairvoyance of the Tower's song fell away at once. Dust clouds rose from in front of the massive entranceway, and Roland saw at once there was no clasp, knob or latch on its inside panel. The stench that had been hanging in the air when he entered was suddenly gone and replaced with the smell of dust and earth.

Pristine and majestic when he had placed his gunna at its base, the stalwart door now again looked old and swollen in its frame. The gunslinger was not surprised. There would be no exit from the Dark Tower, and he had _felt_ that since pulling Patrick in Ho Fat II across the last wheels before the stone pyramid on the border of Can'-Ka No Rey. The end was near, say true. Given his entire existence had been dedicated to standing exactly where he was at that moment, he cared nothing at all that he would likely never leave.

His ka-tet had stood true and remembered the faces of their fathers very well. They had killed with their hearts, and mowed down those threatening their path in the name of the Tower, the Eld, and Ka. He took the last of his moment to speak a silent word for them to any power that would hear him.

Having honored his fallen, Roland turned his attention to the smooth off-white interior walls of the Dark Tower, which slowly narrowed in diameter as they rose with the Tower's height. They first appeared to be bare, but as he walked closer he saw that there _was_ something the last light of day made hard to perceive, but something, nonetheless. As he neared the wall he saw that, ever so faintly, there was a large picture literally _engraved_ into it. He walked up the first few steps of the massive, open-sided stairwell, which was made of wide pink marbled steps and saw that this mural appeared to wind upwards with the countless stairs.

With the clairvoyance afforded to him standing by the central pillar gone, Roland had no memory of the mural, but believed in all his travels he had never seen such intricate and perfect art. He ran his hand across its smooth surface and sighed in silent fascination. The engraving marks had all been shaded in a charcoal hue to bring the entire work to life in contrast to its off-white canvas.

Beginning at the base of the grand staircase, the engraved images showed a small bassinette in the center of a majestic bedroom suite. Inside, an infant, looking only days old, gazed indifferently into the eyes of its presumed mother and father, who were kneeling beside their new baby. Even in the fading light of day, the faces of Steven and Gabrielle Deschain were unmistakable, etched to perfection beside the winding stairs.

 **3**

The gunslinger moved several steps upward. The mural, more detailed than anything he had ever seen, transitioned seamlessly from one scene to the next using the end of one event to begin the next. The first of this began from the master bedroom where his parents knelt beside his bassinette, the curtains at the great window were blowing inside a bit, perhaps from the help of a summer Gileadian breeze. Behind one of these curtains stood Marten, the man of many faces and names and Stephen Deschain's wizard, hiding from sight. Marten's head was turned from the room, eyes narrowed and cunning, glaring out the window at a group of young boys standing in a straight line on a large field. The gunslinger easily recognized he and his ka-mates Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, Jaime De Curry, no doubt listening to whatever lesson Cort was belting out that particular day.

' _It's a picture of my life,'_ Roland thought, humbled at the meticulous detail and beauty he had only ever seen before from Patrick's hands. But despite his awe and desire to follow the Tower's limn of his life's journey, he forced himself back from the wall. His heart thumped in his chest and he shielded his eyes from seeing more before he could become entranced.

Roland had _burned_ for the top room of the Dark Tower with every step of his quest—and now that fire was roaring with a ferocity that was all but intolerable. He knew that the ascent to the pinnacle would not be easy, and the last light of day reminded him of how quickly time was fleeting. As most of his journey had been, the way to the top room could be laden with traps.

' _Like yon mural, there will be much that will seek to slow me down,'_ he hold himself, _'I must go.'_

Though he had been exhausted for literally years, the gunslinger had felt the most fatigued on the final leg of his journey with Patrick in tow behind him. In this state Roland had been unable to shake the thought that he had been so focused on just _reaching_ the Dark Tower that he hadn't considered the implications or strategy for ascending it. Thus, he had refused Stuttering Bill's _truckomobile_ that would have carried he, Patrick, Susannah and Oy to the field of Can'-Ka No Rey from the Federal, a hundred and twenty wheels back in much less time. And yet, now that he was here, he found that he was still unprepared for the Tower's _enormity._

' _Yet I would reach the top room before sundown,'_ he thought, the call of the Tower still in his ears, _'and see the glare of the rainbow in its full glory.'_

The idea of reaching the top room at any other time was not something something Roland had considered. The prophecy had always been that he would come to the Dark Tower at sunset, and he wanted the day's last light to blaze through the top room's stained glass and fall over him—to _cleanse_ him—and become the finest hour of his existence. He wanted it, and now it was finally possible. As Eddie Dean had said and shown so many times, starting with the whittled key that had re-drawn Jake into Mid-World, _all_ things were possible.

'… _before sundown…'_ ran like a wild mantra in his brain.

He looked back to the massive stairwell and saw that there was still adequate light seeping into the Tower through the slim windows that lined its black-gray exterior. He began his ascent to the top room at a blurred pace, struggling to not look at his apparent life history engraved into the ivory walls running at pace with him. He raced on—at times taking two steps at a clip—for at long last, his _true_ quest for the Dark Tower's top room had begun, and he ran like hell itself was behind him.

 **4**

As he ran Roland thought of New York and the symbolic Holmes "Tower" that stood there. He wondered how many other wheres and whens he had not seen, and presumably never would, and how _their_ respective Towers aligned with the Dark Tower. He remembered the odd wonder that had been Feemalo, Fimalo and Fumalo at Le Casse Roi Russe. They had spoken of such things—and such Towers.

Roland then thought of the rose in the vacant lot in New York and its sweet nectar of song. It was a song that he heard faintly now as well, seeping through the narrow slit windows. He remembered being pulled into the golden hue of the rose's epicenter, as if being moved from his very body and into _all_ possible realms— _all_ possible wheres and whens. He sighed, knowing he would likely never see that lot or the rose again.

He looked upward as he continued his ascent. The stairway was colossal and extended far beyond sight into the soaring limits of the Tower's vast interior. Roland watched the central pillar as he ran, its flashes of faint blue light gleaming out as he passed the narrow slits in its structure. After climbing for several minutes, the gunslinger saw from below he had barely made any progress in the Tower's awesome height. He wondered how it was possible that so many wheres and worlds could be contained in the center of a single rose, but he could run outright for as long as he had and hardly have gone anywhere.

The muscles in Roland's legs began to burn and cramp, but he hardly noticed.

The _humming_ noise and moving circulating air continued as the gunslinger raced up the marble steps. He saw nothing ahead, and surely it was too soon to look for the top room's door, but Roland could _feel_ something around him—some new grander force was culminating outside his control. Something was here, all but _pulling_ at Roland to respond in some way. But time was short, and what would come would come. He continued his relentless ascent, the stairs before him winding seemingly forever upward. There were countless steps to climb before the sun's final orange sliver way to dusk. How could he possibly make it in time?

He silenced his mind—what would come would come.


	5. Chapter 4: Riposte

**Fourth Chapter**

 **Riposte**

 **1**

'…'

Roland slowed then stopped his ascent, his breath blasting in his chest. He had to pause for just a moment—had to—or his legs would give out entirely. He thought that he heard the odd, thin voice of the Dark Tower in his mind just a second before, but his heart and breath were pumping too fast to hear. No matter, it was more _feeling_ than something he could hear, like thoughts and emotions you sensed when an-tet.

Panting like a hound, he peered over the edge of the giant stairwell. Despite his fierce pace, he had had made little progress in his ascent. He looked upward and reeled at the Dark Tower's awesome height. Stepping away, he turned to the ivory wall and the mural, which continued to climb with him. In it Roland saw a sick man, possibly near death, stumbling over a long stretch of beach with a distant door standing on nothing but sand ahead. To the left of the door on the mural was a row of small seats he recognized very well. Sitting in the third one was Eddie Dean, wearing a face of nerves and fear that the gunslinger found to be very un-Eddie-like. He again thought of how detailed the mural was, how precise and crisp. The freestanding door on the beach was so realistic it may as well been the actual door from the beach hung in the Dark Tower.

'…'

The _feeling_ that the gossamer voice of the Tower was reaching out came to him again. What Roland heard were almost decipherable words, but his heart was still racing too quickly to know for sure. ' _Or my mind isn't open to hear,'_ he thought. He closed his eyes, focused his energy and his breathing began to slow, but the voice/feeling was gone. Yet, Roland thought that standing beside this part of the mural was no coincidence. The voice/feeling had come to him exactly where he was at just the right time. He again scanned the mural, and there it was—though barely discernible. It really was no surprise, he thought, grinning and reaching for the wall.

His hand touched an actual doorknob on the mural door marked "The Prisoner." The detail of the scene was such that the knob blended in perfectly with the rest of the door, taking on an almost two-dimensional quality. It was cool and smooth under his grasp.

' _Except I am the prisoner now,'_ he mused, _'and ka holds the key.'_ His senses heightened, mindful of potential traps. With a dry swallow, Roland tried the knob, which turned easily. He leaned against the wall and pushed.

 **2**

Though the doorknob turned freely, the door itself groaned in loud protest as it opened on ancient lazy hinges to the Tower's rough and jagged exterior. A fresh bit of breeze blew into Roland's face as the door opened, and the roses' sweet smell and song combined with the voice and the hums of the Dark Tower in a sonorous ensemble. Although his dreams of the tower and red field had been extremely vivid, looking down to the noble folds of Can'-Ka No Rey rising up to meet the setting sun was greater than anything he had ever dreamed or hoped it would be.

Roland stepped out onto an empty small balcony of shadowy stone that seemed very similar in size and height to the Crimson King's. He judged that he had ascended to roughly the Red King's height, although he now faced the opposite direction. Roland imagined the King's eyes, bouncing in eternal hatred, directly across the Tower's circumference to where he stood now. He chanced several more steps onto the grayscale flat, keeping hold of the doorknob. Mayhap it would lock behind him as well, should it swing shut, damning him to his own eternity on the balcony across from his nemesis and without his father's six gun, the key to the Tower. It seemed nothing was impossible at the Dark Tower, and the ka-force he felt with the Tower left little to doubt that it was also active and alive in his ascent.

The gunslinger looked above and below and saw other jutting balconies swirling with the exterior of the Dark Tower in both directions. This made him think about his position on the Tower. If the legend was true that the Crimson King had killed himself to prevent a certain death from Roland, and he had come to the Dark Tower alone to await his coming, that raised a very interesting question. It was impossible at this height for a man to climb up to the balcony from Can'-Ka No Rey.

How had the Crimson King get all the way up to his balcony?

 **3**

There were only two possibilities, both of which were simple: he did not come alone and was helped to his balcony somehow, or he had used some variant of his Black magic to…

' _Comalla-come-come…'_

Roland heard and _felt_ the voice of the Tower again, and it was both intoxicating and somehow terrible.

 _'Commala-come-come,_

 _gunslinger may ya come._

 _Commala-come-Roland,_

 _the journey's nearly done.'_

Roland felt this call in his very being and turned to go back into the Dark Tower. Time was short and the climb was long. He stepped halfway through the mural's doorway and was pulling the screeching door behind him when he stopped—when his mind stopped him before his hands could pull the door closed.

 **4**

His mind had seen something on the balcony.

Roland jammed his boot between the door and the frame before he knew he had done it. The bit of breeze from Can'-Ka No Rey was slipping through the crack in the doorway creating a vacuum, pulling the door closed, maybe even shutting it forever. He also _felt_ this to be true, for why should this door be any different from the other magic doors in his long journey that only opened and closed one time?

Carefully, Roland reopened the door and walked back to the balcony while holding the door firmly in place. He immediately saw what his eyes had missed. Above the antiquated door, in the side of the Tower's shaded slate, barely noticeable to the human eye, were inscribed fragments of words writ in the High Speech. Faded and warped with the passage of immeasurable time, the parts Roland could read were the following:

E it yic o l ho e t la m at.

Oet at o tho d i me ses al t ri s.

 **5**

Cort had taught the future gunslingers of Gilead to use their eyes to see much, and more quickly and faster than other people could think possible. He had also taught their minds how to see much faster than their eyes when necessary, which had aided Roland in his quest countless times. He spared a few precious seconds to re-read the inscription and commit it to memory.

' _Comalla-come-come…'_

The call was all but unbearable to resist—just as it had been when the Crimson King had used it as torture while he and Patrick hid behind the stone pyrammid. Again he felt the presence of something great—something very powerful, but he focused on the engraved faded words.

When he was certain that he had memorized the short prose, he walked decisively back into the Dark Tower, pulling the mural's door closed behind him. It closed with an authoritative _clap._ The gunslinger knew even before he checked the mural that the physical doorknob was gone and was now just another part of the massive illustration.

' _Comalla-come-come…'_

Looking up the grand stairwell once again, Roland gasped and then quickly flattened himself against the mural wall. Then very cautiously, the gunslinger leaned forward and peered over the open edge of the stairs. Instead of looking down to the rotunda as he had just moments ago, he now stared into a vast space, the marble stairs twisting their way around and around, all the way to the bottom and front door below, now a mere spec from where he stood.

A lump formed in his throat and he checked again as if to confirm what he had seen, and Roland realized that he must have been looking down perhaps half the height of the Dark Tower as he had seen it in Can'-Ka No Rey.

' _Level...'_ the Tower's voice cooed.

 _'Comalla...'_

The gunslinger could only nod slightly. It was no surprise, he thought—the Dark Tower had spoken to him his entire life, commanded his epic quest, and even had chosen the fate of those he loved. And now, finally at the end, it spoke again. It had called to him when he had entered, when he began up the grand stairwell, and it had caused him to stop running to rest. All so that he could open the mural's door.

 _Khef._

Somehow, Roland was sharing khef with the Dark Tower.

The gunslinger continued up the ever-winding staircase, his heart thumping hard in his chest. He thought that it was likely time to change how he thought of magic doors and how they worked in his quest, as suddenly, far above, and barely within eyesight, standing on the stairs, was the outline of a large door.

 **6**

Cort's voice blared inside his head.

' _Move, maggot! Run yer ever-failing sack of guts up those stairs and stake claim, bondsman! Ye linger like a fucking mutie slipped fresh from the womb! Become, maggot! Stand true and become!'_

The sun was still above the horizon, but dusk was coming quickly. Now that he was further up the stairwell, perhaps there was still time to see the the rainbow in the top room. Roland flew up the staircase, taking two in each stride.


	6. Chapter 5: Ascent

**Fifth Chapter**

 **The Ascent**

 **1**

Roland ran for some time to reach the next door, which stood in the center of the stairwell, flush with the width of the stairs, making further passage impossible. It so resembled the doors from the beach that it may as well been one of them. Cautiously, he grasped the rough wooden frame, peered around it, and found he could see behind it easily enough. The door itself disappeared when his line of vision cleared its outermost edge, making it seem that he was holding on to nothing at all. He saw the stairwell rising upward behind the door, and when he turned his head he could also see back _through_ where the door had been, towards the rotunda. When he moved back to where he had been standing, the door reappeared, again blocking his path. Like the many other doors in his quest, a single word he had become all too familiar with was engraved in its center:

Sacrifice

 _'Trouble,'_ he thought, _'and in my road.'_

Patches of last daylight filtered through the Dark Tower's narrow-slit windows and floated on Roland's hand as he reached for the doorknob. There was no depth illusion to this door as there had been in the mural door below, but it too turned smoothly and with an audible _'click.'_

 **2**

There were so many faces.

The door swung inward and stopped when it hit the stair behind it. Gazing through the doorway the gunslinger balked as he saw the many bodies laying on the stairs, their countless faces staring to every point of the compass, spread as wide as the stairwell, and as far ahead as he could see. Roland first saw Hax the cook—a face he had not seen since boyhood. Hax's face, though recognizable, was worn and desiccated to the point of mummification. The flesh around his neck was drawn tight, like cracked leather, and was shaded in deep hues of azure and plum where the hangman's noose had cinched tight.

As if in disbelief, Roland again peered around the side of the door frame, up the ascending stairwell. The door once again vanished as his eyes passed where it stood on the stairs and he saw without surprise that the stairwell again appeared to be empty. Moving back, the door reappearing as he went, Hax and the countless other corpses reappeared like magic.

Beyond Hax and the door were more faces he recognized. Some had been from Mejis, some beyond that from Debaria, and the gunslinger had an idea of who and what lay beyond that. The dead filled the stairwell, slumped at times together in piles, sprawled out in thinner patches at others. Looking ahead, the gunslinger saw that it was possible to continue his climb, but that he would be greatly slowed by this obstacle. He thought of the word on the door and felt he understood.

 _'The debt for my quest paid in flesh.'_

The only way to continue was among the dead, and his mind felt heavy at the thought of crawling among the bodies and the faces he would see as he climbed.

 **3**

There was no gentle way to proceed.

Still, Roland fought the urge to fly up the stairs anyway, clawing frantically through the bodies at pace to reach the top room with the setting sun. Deep in his mind however, the gunslinger wondered if that was what he was being _made_ to feel. Perhaps the Tower's call, which pulsated from the central pillar, could make him mad enough to race up the stairs, stumble, and fall to his death.

 _Sacrifice_ —surely the word on the door referenced more than just the dead on the Tower's stairs.

As the gunslinger readied himself, he saw Hax's left leg lying at a crooked angle. Underneath, a small bundle of black feathers, which he recognized as the broken body of his pet hawk, David. Surveying what lay ahead, the gunslinger also saw the faces of several of Farson's men, and just beyond them, the twisted, bloody face of Roy Depape. Roland looked upward and understood there may be no way to move beyond the bodies before the sun set.

A thread of panic rose in Roland's chest. If he could not come to the top room at sunset, then what would happen? The seemingly endless sea of blank faces stared down at him with no more answer than he could assume himself, and the gunslinger began to feel the enormity of those that had fallen in his quest.

There was no gentle way to proceed.

 **4**

Although small parts of the stairs were still visible, Roland struggled at first to continue the ascent. He recalled he and Cuthbert as boys, standing at the base of the gallows, spreading their scraps of bread for the birds as Cort had instructed. Seeing Hax once more brought fresh vividness to the memory of his hanging, and the cook's breastbone _snapped_ loudly and caved in with a cloud of dust as the gunslinger crawled over it.

His progress was slow at first, but became easier as he found clearer areas where he could take several steps around some of the bodies of Farson's men that lay past Hax. Some of these faces he recognized, some he was seeing as if for the first time. The outstretch of bodies thickened as Roland came upon Dave Hollis, Herk Avery, Hart Thorin, and then Roy Depape and Eldred Jonas, his face frozen in shock and a perfect red hole in the center of his forehead. Roy's collarbone cracked like a twig under Roland as he passed.

The gunslinger felt little as he moved on, other than the Tower's constant call. Ahead, Roland saw the light changing through the slit windows. The light in the Dark Tower was dimmer, not as full as in moments before, and the reflection on the stairwell had changed from bold red-orange to a more grayscale hue of gloaming.

There were more of Farson's men after the Big Coffin Hunters, and Roland become steadier and more efficient in his climb. These were men that he, Alain and Cuthbert had lured into Eyebolt Canyon before trapping them with a wall of burning brush. Some of the men he crawled past were charred and blackened, some of them appeared pale and frozen as if they had drowned. And of course they had—within the hypnotic folds of the thinny. George Latigo was one of the last of these men.

The faces on the stairs began to blend together as the gunslinger maneuvered over and around them as quickly as he could. _'So many,'_ he thought with some amusement, wondering how three young men not quite of shaving age could have ended such a sum. He thought of Bert, riding behind Farson's men and the Big Coffin Hunters, doing more damage with a slingshot than he and Alain had done with—

Time suddenly seemed to stand still around him. Even the Dark Tower's call seemed to fade as Roland cleared another mound of dead. Leaning against the mural wall sat a body burnt nearly beyond the point of recognition. What of its hair remained had been scorched black, its garb mostly gone. That was, all but a small patch near the nape of the neck. It had been pretty once, a Reap Day dress nearly as pure and fair as her milky complexion had been, but had been made gone by the flame and ancient purification rite. ' _Charyou tree_.'

Roland Deschain finally came to Susan Delgado once again.

 **5**

The mural wall showed a small group of people and one animal resembling a dog sitting in the middle of a long stretch of highway. Behind them, thousands of cars and their drivers lay lifeless in the wake of the Captain Trips virus. Ahead of the group stood a magnificent castle, and behind that was an area of the image that was wavy, and seemed to warble in a way that was very familiar.

Deftly, as if not to wake her, the gunslinger knelt before her—his girl at the window, his careless love. No resemblance remained of the gorgeous young Hambry woman, but Roland knew it was Susan—he all but could hear and _feel_ her presence. It screamed over the noise of the crackling flames and rioting crowd as it had when he had seen her inside the pink grapefruit.

' _Roland I love thee!'_

His heart skipped as it had when he had seen her tied to the burning pile, but also because Roland had seen the Dark Tower through the glam for the first time, and he had committed his life to the Tower even over Susan without hesitation. Still, the gunslinger reached for her, looking where her eyes once were, and gently cradled one of her blackened hands in his. "I'm here now my love," he said quietly, looking to her as if she would respond. Her hand felt flaky and weightless. He thought it remarkable that after all this time, the wounds from her death could still feel so fresh. He searched to find the words he wanted to say— _needed_ to say—but those words, whichever they were, escaped him.

The gunslinger lowered Susan's hand to her side, and for an instant, he saw her as she was when they were lovers. There were still no words, so he simply stayed beside her, his hand on his chest, part of him feeling as that he was leaving her all over again. "Bird and bear and hare and fish," he finally whispered, rising to his feet. The lump rising in his throat did not make tears, but it was weighted with grief.

And then, as he had done countless times before, Roland of Gilead made a long bow, said farewell in his mind, and moved on.

 **6**

The ascent was less arduous for a time, but remained very difficult in other ways. Ahead, after several faces that Roland did not recognize with more than a passing familiarity came more that he did.

There were plenty of spaces on this area of the stairwell for the gunslinger to climb using the actual stairs—he only needed to watch his step as he walked around those that lay around him. He was making one such step when he came to his mother. Gabrielle Deschain was placed so her head pointed with the direction of the stairs as if a compass of sorts, and she was wearing the dress that Roland would remember forever.

Her withered face wore the same stunned expression as the day he had gunned her down—deceived into believing she was Rhea, the witch of the Cöos. He still recalled the hatred he felt towards the hag and the shock he felt when he realized the sham, but it had been too late to stop his hands from their work.

Roland found little emotion for his mother, who was more paradox to him now than his memory of her as a woman. She had so affectionately raised her dear baby bunting, but she also had conspired to murder her cuckolded husband by aligning with Marten Broadcloak. _'I remember how they danced,'_ he had told Jake under the mountain, remembering stealing away in Great Hall and watching as Marten and his mother danced, his greedy eyes creeping over Gabrielle's fine skin as they moved.

' _You died before that day,'_ he thought to her, _'when you died as a mother and a wife and were reborn as a slave.'_

Roland climbed on.

 **7**

Suddenly the thoughts of baby bunting, chassit, and his mother faded from his mind.

Just ahead, a wall of dead bodies rose before him, piled as thick as possibly seven or at times ten high. This mass continued up the staircase so far that Roland couldn't see where it ended, if it ended at all. He did not know the cadavers' faces, but saw that many of the fallen wore the mark of the Good Man, John Farson, and he recognized the battle garb the disbanded loyalist army had worn on the slopes of Jericho Hill.

It had been the day they all had fallen.

Slivers of panic scored his soul. The dead were stacked high enough to make the pile unstable. A trap, true enough, and just when time was so _damn short._ Roland could think of no alternative if he could not make it to the top room by sundown. He quickly grabbed a belt that was sticking out of the wall of bodies and pulled himself upward, searching for another anchor. He found it in a dangling arm, and grasped the dirty, pale hand that hung at its end. He wedged his boot into the soft space between two of the fallen and began to climb, using the corpses like footholds. He felt, then heard a bone break as his boot slipped and he lost his balance, hanging by the remnants of a gun belt.

The gunslinger steadied and looked down. It would be difficult to continue efficiently. He was not worried about falling back to the stairwell, although doing so likely would mean injury, but plunging off the side of the pile meant death. He dug his boot back into an alcove and saw a man's head snap off as he did so.

Mindful of how decomposed the bodies were, Roland made a few well-placed steps and holds, finding more purchase in items such as belts, limbs and weapons hardware. He developed a peculiar rhythm to his climb and his injured right hand pulled its own weight, although the gunslinger did not notice that it was no longer throbbing or bleeding. In another moment he pulled himself to the top of the wall of the dead, rolled onto his back, and thanked anything that would hear him that he had not plummeted into the Dark Tower's center this close to the end.

As the sunlight continued to wane, the gunslinger began walking across the top of the wall of bodies, arms out to his sides as if on a tightrope, swaying and on the verge of falling with the first few steps. He discovered quickly that stepping on the cadavers' backs was the best way to remain on his feet. The dead were laid out in every position imaginable, but the gunslinger was able to make faster progress by stepping and at times jumping onto the backs of those who were face down in the massive heap. Spines _snapped_ and split as dusty cracked boots passed over cracked dusty faces.

He went on for some time, counting off passing moments as a distraction from the setting sun. When fifteen had passed, he saw that the remaining daylight had again dimmed somewhat, but not as much as he would expect. Roland thought of his watch, now with Patrick, and how it had at times run frantically and at other times hardly at all. Time, at least as it had come to exist now, appeared to be slowing once again. He begged in his mind for time to wait for him to reach the top room, but knew that time could still lurch forward at any instant, even with the Beams being saved.

Roland noticed he could no longer see the Dark Tower's mural, as the bodies were stacked above its pristine illustrations. Then Roland heard a bright _snap,_ and watched as his foot sank slightly into the pile. He then felt the entire mound beneath him shift and list forward as something in the unsteady mass gave way, and then his entire leg sank into the dead like quicksand. He was forced first down to his knee, and then was pulled and folded into a rift that appeared as the shifting bodies fell ahead from where he had been standing.

Roland cursed as he fell halfway down into the height of the death wall and several of the corpses fell on top of him. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the pile came to rest with the gunslinger trapped inside. The slivers of panic in Roland's mind became the grasp of tightening fingers as he remembers...

 **8**

The bodies around Roland reek of death, blood and gunsmoke. It is blazingly hot—in the full of summer—when he begins his escape from the battlefield valley buried among the fallen on a handcart. Dirt, sweat, blood, and tears course his face, these latter for his ka mates that have gone on to the clearing ahead of him.

As the cart rolls Roland comes to believe that lying among the dead is worse than being dead. The cart rocks often, shifting and settling the pile of bodies as it moves, and he hears the cries of agony of those in the field below Jericho Hill that have survived, but will soon be made silent. The air is oppressively humid, worsened by the hot blood that runs from those piled above him onto his face and neck. The stink of shit and piss swells as bodies are added to the cart, blending with the stench of fear that hangs in the air with the humidity.

The gunslinger barely holds to his training despite his great effort, remaining silent and dead to those that would see him. In fact, in the future Roland Deschain will have no memory of these moments and is now in the care of ka itself while his exhausted and grieving brain keeps him near unconsciousness to save his injury and sanity. Yet under that shroud his mind is racing, his heart pounding, his eyes weeping dryly. Jaime is dead, Alain is dead, Bert is dead, his father is dead, his mother is dead, Cort is dead, and Gilead has fallen as well, which makes the battle for the Dark Tower seemingly dead as well. So many were lost, how could there still be hope? The idea of continuing to the Tower now was insanity itself with his ka-mates gone.

And so, even if for just an instant, young Roland Deschain wishes to be dead as well. It would be the work of less than a second, he knows. Although trapped under the fallen, his left hand—his slow hand—has enough space to pull, rotate, and call his father's sandalwood revolver to the work it was built to do. For Roland does not fear death. Nay, he and his have been taught to use death as a means to an end, as an exit from a world close to and end of its own and into one of peace, order, and righteousness. Cuthbert had discussed this at length in his short years, just to have fallen himself mere moments ago. Here and now, Roland would welcome the chance to meet him in the clearing where the path ends.

Yet, the gunslinger is young, wounded, and completely worn through. He is full of the raw emotion and hormones of young manhood, fueled by the recent Mejis campaign and now the upon Jericho's slopes. Cort had beaten many things into his pupils, not the least of which was that impulsivity was one of the worst sins. Therefore, Roland refuses to defile the iron of the Eld, and he begins to refocus on the urgency of his situation.

That is when he suddenly sees it again and hears it beckoning him, calling for him, and it is the clearest he has heard it since he was lost in the wretched grapefruit glam. The Dark Tower is imploring him to come at any cost, to stand, to sacrifice, and fulfill the ancient prophecy. Roland feels this call fill his being to the depths of his soul and his grief abates and his wounds are soothed.

Tranquility descends, the sounds of war fade, the stench of death flitters, and he feels a disturbing peace in knowing this is not the end—that his life is not over and not really his own any longer. For as long as he has breath, he will quest for the Tower. For if he were so willing to have death this day, this moment, what would it matter if death found him along the path to the Tower? The Dark Tower's call holds his soul, making nothing else matter.

So the young gunslinger sleeps on the handcart, envisioning a Tower that is also _all_ things in _all_ places. Mayhap it is the protective shroud of this call—this strange _khef_ —that brings a brief, death-like sleep and protects him from being discovered, perhaps it is his utter exhaustion, perhaps both. Regardless, the cart halts quickly and the weight of the pile lightens on his chest. The gunslinger is indeed a corpse to those throwing the bodies from the wagon—his eyes are still, his limbs are limp, his mouth agape, and his breath suspended. He is tossed unceremoniously onto a pile, his body landing atop others, several feet up from the ground. Others are stacked upon the gunslinger, who remains in the deep veil of khef with the Dark Tower.

The stench of accelerant is thick as it's poured on the mound. The fire comes quickly to the base on the far side of the pile, its orange arms quickly enveloping those who lay there. The reek of burning flesh fills the flat of the field, and those that have not yet passed let fly their final screams as they flail and fall from the pile onto the thick parched grass. This movement causes the pile to shift and lean, and Roland's body tumbles off of the heap and rolls onto the sward with a _thump_.

He awakens now, his mind jumping to awareness, and he opens his left eye to a mere slit, but not enough to be seen by the enemy. Against the glare of the sun and flames Roland sees the cart handlers are to his front, the fallen pile of bodies to his left, and there is a gentle downward slope to his right leading into the higher meadow grass of Jericho's base. Those pushing the cart move on in search of more bodies for more piles.

There are more mounds of dead all around him, many that have also collapsed. People are on fire everywhere, many already gone, some still very much alive. Roland's pants and lower shirt are also on fire, but he thwarts the pain for a mere second longer—just long enough for the cart handlers to turn around to see the collapsed heap, determine that all are dead or soon will be, and then turn the wagon toward where they will stack next.

As they do, some of the burning pain breaks through, sinking its terrible hot teeth into his legs and ass. Without a sound, the gunslinger simply rolls to the right, using the slope to turn over and over, across the flat of the field and into the taller and thicker grass at the bottom. The flames on his leg and back huff out as he rolls, and the high grass hides him.

Then without warning, the sky, which had been clouded and fat with moisture all day, suddenly breaks open in a violent storm. Rain falls in torrents, washing blood from the field into small running streams as the lightning flashes above. A _crack_ of thunder belllows an instant later, and those in the field look to the sky and begin to scramble to regroup. As they do, Roland crawls into the tall reeds for cover and lies completely still among the stalks as the rain and hail pelt his back, stinging the burns there.

As the storm rages on, the gunslinger can feel electricity build in the air around him. The hair on his head and body stiffen and rise, and he feels a pulsating thrum begin in his body. In this energy Roland hears the Dark Tower's call grow louder. It is not only calling to him, it feels like somehow the Dark Tower is here at Jericho, calling, _commanding_ him forward.

A moment later the very sky breaks open at Jericho's crest. A single massive spark strikes the ground, and white fire scorches across the apex before quickly drowning in the rain. A sonorous boom blares across the horizon as the fire is doused. The blast expands out above the top of Jericho Hill, then drops as it reverberates across the fields below. It passes over Roland in sonic waves, like ripples across a pond, and he actually feels it pressing on his body as it passes, flattening him to the ground. He suddenly smiles, not just hearing but _listening_ to the lingering echo. It is mighty and triumphant, beautiful and _familiar_.

It is the blast of the horn of Eld.

Hope rises quickly—perhaps somehow someone is signaling muster, a regroup for a final stand—maybe someone has survived after all and is calling for aid. But his smile fades. Roland's body _feels_ and knows that he is the only survivor of the battle. He watched them fall one by one before being wounded himself, and Cuthbert had taken the horn at the final charge and had sounded it the whole way down the slope to his doom.

As his hope fades, Roland feels his mind trying to remember. There is something at the edge of his memory that is trying to break through. _'The horn,'_ he thinks without fully understanding. Yes, but this is not fully what his mind is reaching for, and he realizes this is because the massive blast is _more_ than the sound of the horn.

It was something about the sound itself—something important about its pitch and strength. It was a sound he had heard before, perhaps many times before. _'In my dreams,'_ he recalls, _'in my dreams I hear that great blast as I…'_

 **9**

Roland barely got his feet under him as the edge of the massive pile fell to the stairwell. He had been rocking back and forth, trying to shift the stack, and it had broken free, scattering his memory of Jericho Hill. The pile fell forward and Roland tumbled with the dead, careful to mind the edge of the stairwell. Several bodies hit the stairs with a _crack_ and plummeted into the opaque below. The gunslinger grabbed one of the bodies near him, held it in front of him to break the short fall, and hit the stairs amid the _snaps_ and _cracks._

He stood, looked back the stairwell and felt his ears pop. He had come far, and was higher, closer. Across Dark Tower's center, Roland could see that the opposite interior wall was now much closer than when he had entered. The thrumming central cylinder was much closer as well, its pale blue light now shading the edge of the stairwell. Unlike the narrowing of the Tower walls, the pillar seemed to remain the same diameter from base to top.

Roland supposed this was a source of power, perhaps for the Tower itself, but also possibly for the metallic underlining of Can'-Ka No-Rey. He felt and heard the Tower's hum and call most strongly emitting from the central pillar, and was not surprised to realize that it felt exactly as it had at Jericho Hill all those long years ago. Somehow, some way, he really had been connected to the Dark Tower that day, and all the other days when he heard its call. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Ahead, several bodies from the battle were scattered across the stairs, but the path was once again much clearer, making the climb less difficult.

Past the remaining Jericho soldiers Roland saw three bodies slumped on top of each other. They had been prominently displayed, clearly meant for him to see. It wasn't the clothing that he first recognized, but the well-oiled tie-down holster knotted low on the leg in front of him, crisscross style. The holster had finally dried and cracked with the passing years, and it was missing the big sandalwood revolver, and Roland wondered what had happened to it after it was lost on the slopes of Jericho Hill.

The gunslinger gently moved Alain and Jamie from on top of Cuthbert. All of their faces were near-mummified as the others' had been. Jamie's was pallid grey, eyes squinted closed, his mouth pulled into a tight grimace. Roland found it harder to look at Alain, whose face was filled with the surprise of being killed by his own friends during the battle. Cuthbert's face was frozen in laughter. The rest of him was covered in stains and spatters of blood even now, as he had taken the worst of the gunfire among them. Roland had lost track of how many times he had been shot, yet he had stood true at the end, laughing like a madman, ready to charge, ready to stand. A gunslinger to the last, he would have followed Roland into the very gates of hell had that been asked.

"Then blow that fucking horn," Roland said quietly, remembering Bert blowing the final great blast, one bloody hand grasping the bell of the horn of Eld, the other his revolver. And they charged, and they fought—and they were ended. "No quarter," the gunslinger half whispered, half laughed.

He rose, looked again at the fading sunlight, to his friends, and lastly up the grand stairwell. He once again felt distant panic. How many more had fallen on his path to the Dark Tower? If someone, or something—perhaps even the Tower itself—had placed _everyone_ that had died in Roland's quest on the stairs…there would be thousands more to come. That would require incalculable time and effort beyond what remained of the day. There could be hours—perhaps _days_ —of climbing left—he could climb what remained of the Dark Tower, perhaps only to arrive to the top room when the sun was gone. Perhaps he would be trapped in the darkness, an idea that filled him with unfamiliar fear. Or he would gain the top room only to find it _was_ empty, or worse, he would die in the dim before he could get to the top at all. Then the journey would be for nothing, and everyone would have died for nothing, and he would be dead, and—

He slapped his face, and hard, bringing the world back into focus. He cast the panic into the depths of his mind and held it there firmly in place. There was only one thing to be done, regardless of what time remained, and standing where he was wouldn't change that. He supposed the power chamber in the center of the Tower would provide light if light were needed. He decided he would not look out the Tower's windows until he came to the top, and tore off running as fast as he could.

 **10**

The gunslinger ran like never before, the heels of his boots echoing short, sharp clicks as he went. He vowed to not stop running until he reached the top—he would somehow will his spent body past its end and would run right to the top room's door and straight through it if he could.

Scores of dead blurred by him as he passed. Next came a curling line of bodies laid out as they had been in the streets of Tull after the gunslinger had killed them all. Roland saw the surprised face of the horseman's daughter— _'Soobie,'_ he remembered—and Allie the bartender, her face erased by his revolver during the fight. The line ended with the massive splayed body of Sylvia Pittston. He lept across her undeterred.

He flew past Enrico Balazar and his hired guns, past Henry Dean, his severed head nearby, and then Jack Andolini, Tricks Postino, and George Biondi. Roland's boots were dark pistons as he raced through the more open space on the stairs. Below, Jack Mort's flattened body flashed by. After some time, Roland saw far ahead that the stairs ended and met a blackened wall or doorway in the distance. He ran harder, and soon realized that he was not seeing an end of the climb by any means.

Instead it was another wall—stacked inexplicably high with more dead. Roland saw the blue and grey patches among the mass even as he ran. Pubes, Greys, and all the other citizens of Lud formed this massive stack, which was at least thrice the gunslinger's height. But by the time he came to the pile, he may as well have not seen it in his road. He moved fluidly, clawing at and grasping belts, hair and limbs as fast as he could. He never stopped moving, and he began to ascend the great throng with his arms and legs flailing for purchase, teeth clenched, breath blasting in hot bursts. Had he been moving any slower, he would have likely fell off of the pile altogether.

Moving this way made the gunslinger oddly nimble and lighter, his feet and arms flying in and out of the pile, counterbalancing the majority of his bodyweight. Random heads and limbs cracked and broke free, falling first to the stairs and then bouncing into the center chasm. Roland snarled and scrabbled, pulling himself higher, eyes scanning for the top. On and on he climbed, clawing and pulling, losing perhaps one in every three holds as he went, but always finding another crevice, weapon, belt or appendage in its place. The muscles in his legs and arms began to throb and burn.

Moments later the gunslinger pulled himself to the top of the mound and collapsed there, crying out as he rolled over onto his back, his arms and legs limp like useless jelly. But he would not be deterred. He rolled right and was preparing to continue when he felt it. Similar to Jericho Hill's body pile, Roland felt the enormous bevy first begin to sink, then list backward beneath his feet.

His body moved before his brain registered the threat. Lud's population had been massive, and shifted after the gunslinger's frantic climb had caused the front side to become unstable. Over his shoulder Roland saw several bodies tumble from the end into the Tower's dark center. As more bodies fell, the gunslinger felt those beneath him start to sink with them. Knowing nothing else to do, Roland broke into another sprint, this one on all fours in order to aid his balance.

The bodies behind him began to peel off in layers, crashing to the stairwell and into the center of the Tower. The gunslinger moved as fast as he could while bent over, feeling the sinking pile at his feet get lower and lower as he raced on. He strained his neck to keep looking forward. There was no time to think about what would happen if he lost his footing. He used his eyes' lightning speed to do what they had been made to do—to _aim_ and see the most solid footholds among the bodies as he ran.

Roland dared not look behind him even for an instant, knowing that one faulty step would be his doom. There would be no rocking this pile to become free if he fell from where he was and became trapped, as he would likely be crushed to death by the bodies on top of him or upon impact somewhere far below. Behind him, the bodies continued to collapse and fall, creating a cloud of dust and booming thunder like a stampede. His chest burned as he continued his odd sprint. Several times his feet kicked his flailing arms, and once his knee almost connected with his jaw. He had no idea how long he ran, he only looked ahead for any sign of the pile's end.

Roland did not consciously register that the light inside the Dark Tower had faded to near dark. As he focused on his footing and balance, outracing the pile's collapse and watching for the end of the wall, the light in the Tower's slit windows faded and fell into dusk. The pale blue light from the Tower's center cylinder was all that reflected off of the gunslinger's sweaty face. Roland knew that regardless of what his mind commanded that his body only had minutes left moving at the all-out pace before one of his legs or arms faltered. _'I wonder when I'll first fall,'_ he thought, remembering thinking this in the desert when he had been all but dead from dehydration. Splotches of white began to swell into his field of vision.

Yet, to his surprise the end came quickly, and the gunslinger almost missed the ledge that suddenly appeared out the white murk in his vision. He fell to avoid running straight off the tall ledge and the pile vibrated underneath him as he rolled to a stop near one of the last bodies on the wall. It was a Pube clearly enough, and one that had been goodly fat by the look of him. Roland pulled the Pube's belt from his pants as he watched the crumbling rim of the falling bodies approach like a giant sinkhole.

He was high enough that if he jumped to the stairs he would be seriously hurt, but if he stayed, he would be toppled to his death. He rolled on his stomach facing the collapsing pile. He pulled the belt around one of the Pube's massive thighs and held the free end in his left hand. After pulling to check its hold, Roland flung himself over the edge and as close to the Tower's mural wall as he could. The pile shifted immediately, and the gunslinger prayed the belt would hold. At first he was pulled forward and upward as the Pube listed and sank toward the crumbling sinkhole, but then the Pube's bodyweight counterbalanced his own, and for a moment they hung that way while bodies beneath fell out under them, dropping to the chasm below.

A second later Roland felt the Pube's body again sink back towards the falling bodies and he knew he had to jump or he would be pulled into the Tower's center with the rest of the pile. Yet, he was still too high to jump without risking injury. Instead he kicked forward at the wall of bodies and swung outward on the belt, and the momentum kept the Pube from falling further. As he swung back the body began to sink again, so Roland kicked outward again, and harder this time, but this time as he swung out the Pube was pulled towards and with him, and the two landed on the stairs in a heap. Roland landed on his right shoulder, which flared with bright pain, but did not seem to be broken or dislocated. Beside him, one of Tick Tock's servants glared at him through empty eye sockets.

He quickly realized it was very close to dark as his eyes cleared. He gulped air, trying to regain his breath, feeling his anger rise. There were so many damn traps, so much trying to keep him from reaching the top room. Ahead, he saw the dim glow of the blue light from the center pillar had replaced the light from sunset. The only end in sight was to the day itself and soon darkness would fall on the Dark Tower. Roland looked back to the Pube and for an instant, he saw Gasher's sore-ridden face grinning back at him. He kicked the corpse over the edge in disgust.

 **11**

' _Move on, maggot,'_ Cort bade him as he panted for breath, _'do what needs doing.'_ And what choice did he have but to do what he needed to do? If he came to the top room at full dark, what of it? What would come would come. So despite his exhaustion Roland willed himself to a light but steady run. As he went the Dark Tower's call again filled him, somewhat easing his weariness and giving him strength.

There were still many bodies ahead, and as he ran faces of the Tick Toc Man, Benny Slightman, Margaret Eisenhart and the unfortunate locals and tourists that had been in the East Stoneham General Store on the day of the ambush passed in a blur. Gods, how many were there? Thousands? Tens of thousands? He passed more, including Chevin of Chayven, the entourage of low men and women, countless Taheen, and the vampires that had waylaid Jake and the Pere in the Dixie Pig.

Later, after it was all over, just at the end, Roland would remember that he had not seen Don Callahan's face among the fallen. The gunslinger had not seen the Pere laying under a large Taheen and several low _folken_ , whose bloody, never-spilling red holes in the center of their foreheads had finally run dry. The Old Fella was at the bottom of this group, grey hair tasseled and matted with sweat and dried blood. The top of his head was mostly gone, but his face showed nothing but peace. He had become a gunslinger, and so death was his means to an end that gave his life meaning and importance.

Roland pursued his own meaning as he ran, although his breath again started to fade. Mia's body was next, savagely ripped to shreds and emancipated from Mordred's wrath. Roland paid no attention. He was getting close. Mia had died near the end of his quest, and those on the stairs when he had opened the Tower's version of the Prisoner door had died in the beginning. The end had to be close—didn't it?

As if in response to this thought, a glimmer of light shone out far ahead. Roland squinted to see it as he ran, but he knew what he had seen—the stairway ended and leveled off to a landing. It seemed impossible to determine long he had been running. Scurrying across the top of Lud's population suddenly seemed very long ago. Roland saw the glimmer shine ahead again and felt new hope. The top—it _had_ to be the top of the Dark Tower. The bodies of Connor Flaherty, Lamla, and those lost in the battle for Algo Siento blurred by.

The gunslinger felt a cramp flare in his right calf and nearly missed the next step, but he would not stop. He switched immediately back to his left foot, avoiding some of the pain and hurried in a quick limp past Richard Sayre, Pimli Prentis and Finli O'Tego. The cramp increased, into something Eddie would have called a _Char-ree horse,_ and this slowed him _._ But he would not stop. He hobbled to where Sheemie Ruiz lay on the stairs. His hair was wild and untamed and his eyes still had some of their limped past, but he would not—and then the gunslinger stopped completely.

Ahead, he saw not just a glimmer, but light—sunlight in fact. Bright sunlight reflected onto the landing at the top of the stairs through the Tower's narrow windows. After he climbed past Lud's population on the stairwell, it had been almost completely dark. Of course, it was impossible to determine how long he had been running since, or how long ago that had been.

But had an entire _day_ passed?

 **12**

Roland was thinking it was unlikely that time had lurched forward again, especially since the Beams were now safe, but this thought was short-lived, and his heart sank. There was no fanfare or reverie on the stairwell as he approached them. In fact, nothing whatsoever revered or honored the area where Eddie Cantor Dean and John "Jake" Chambers lie among the dead on their level of the Dark Tower. If ka, the Tower itself, or some other force had otherwise marked sacred the members of the Ka-Tet of Nineteen and their accomplishments, there was no mark of that power here.

Roland limped the few remaining paces to his kin. Beside him, in the ivory mural wall, a brilliant depiction of a blowing whiteout of snow engendered two human profiles and one much like that of a lean, awkward dog marching along a patch of road. Behind one of these was a cart loaded with provisions and the outline of a woman. Roland looked away—he was too close to the end to lose focus and he desperately wanted to continue—but he knew there was still one thing to make done here.

Eddie's body came first, and his face was not washed and cared for as Susannah had done after his death, but dirty with caked blood as it had been when he was shot in Blue Haven. Eddie's and Jake's remains weren't as withered and dehydrated as the others, and Roland supposed this was because they had crossed to the clearing very recently. The gunslinger felt an unfamiliar but strong wave of emotion tremble through his body, and realized that he was going to again weep before the tears began. He did not fight it back but wept with honor and in memory of his fallen.

Roland shuffled several steps further and stood between Eddie and Jake. Unlike Eddie, the gunslinger's ka-son could not be washed, but he had been made as presentable as possible before his burial. Here in the Dark Tower, Jake appeared as he had when the van had crushed his life out of him, and his leg remained bent at the same unnatural angle as it had been in Keystone Maine. More tears filled, brimmed, and fell around the stubble on his cheeks. Roland bent and rested against the mural wall, sitting between Jake and Eddie, and stretching out his legs. The muscles in his calves felt like stone. The new light from outside streamed in the windows and also shined on the Tower's central pillar. It was very close to the stairwell now. Roland didn't notice.

Instead, he placed a hand on Eddie's and then Jake's shoulders. Roland considered a moment, opened his mouth, but could find no words to say. Ka-tet they had been—one from many—and they had functioned as one until the dark of ka shume filched their khef. And so there were no thoughts or words—only the velvety hum and call of the Dark Tower that filled the spaces of his mind where their khef had once been.

Just before he stood again, Roland thought he heard the acerbic voice of the man in black as clearly as he had when sitting across him in the golgotha of stones. Walter had spoken of sacrifice, the Tower, and death—a monologue that he had heard in his dreams hundreds of times. The fortune told by the tarot cards had transpired even though it had been a glam, mere legerdemain. The only remaining cards from that stacked deck had been Roland's hanged man, the Dark Tower itself, death— _'but not for you, gunslinger'_ —and life.

"But not for me," Roland whispered as Walter's voice faded from his mind.

Past Jake were but four remaining bodies on the marble stairs. Directly beyond these was the landing at the top of the stairwell. The stairs leveled to a plateau that met the off-white pallor of the Dark Tower's interior, and quite simply, stopped. There the Tower's central power cylinder finally met the width of the stairs at the landing, making any further ascent impossible. Above the landing, a ceiling that matched the hue of the mural wall met the Tower's walls, completely encasing the landing other than where the stairway ended. Sunlight streamed through a window above the landing and shone onto the inner wall in a rectangular blood orange frame.

Roland got to his feet and faced Eddie and Jake. Although his calf felt somewhat rested, he was exhausted. Despite the narrowing of the Dark Tower's interior, the stairs were as wide as they had been when Roland had started his climb what felt like days ago. There were only several left. He bent and gently pulled Jake's body into his arms. With great care, Roland stepped around the remaining bodies on the stairwell and to the small landing. He came to the small frame of sunlight and placed Jake sitting against the wall. He took a moment to arrange his body in a proper position, and re-positioned his mangled leg so that both were lying straight out before him. The shards of bone in Jake's leg ground like gravel as he turned his foot upright.

He did the same for Eddie, ceremoniously walking back to where they had been left on the stairs like commoners who were no more than additional bodies in the death debt paid for Roland to gain the Dark Tower. When the gunslinger was satisfied with how Eddie and Jake sat in the sunlight on the landing, he tore off a swatch of his shirt and did his best to clean their faces and hands. When he was finished, he placed their hands on their laps, one on top of the other. He stood, looking at them fondly. They were here in the Dark Tower together after all.

He wasn't sure if that comforted or terrified him.

 **13**

The gunslinger walked back down the few stairs to where his ka-mates had been. His heart rate spiked when he saw Walter O'Dim, the Walkin' Dude himself. Roland felt little relief at seeing his nemesis dead and broken upon this level of the Dark Tower, as he knew it could also be a glam—another stacked deck. The only certainty in Roland's experience with Randall Flagg was there was no certainty, and things were often not as they appeared. Still, there was hardly anything left of the man in black other than scarce scraps of flesh on his face. Mordred had done a fine job of not wasting any of this particular meal. When tracking Walter in the desert, Roland had been sure the only way either of them would come to an end would be by the other's hand. He had been certain of this in the emerald castle in Kansas as well, that they would have some final standoff to decide the fate of the Dark Tower, but in the end, ka had decided, as ka always did.

"Thee's not Eld," Roland sneered, yet he had not come back down the stairs for Walter.

Next, a pale, gaunt body lay with open bulging eyes and a shocked expression on its face. Roland gave pause for just a moment only to see the creature Dandelo for what he _really_ had been—a vampire that would have ended everything if not for Susannah. Despite how he had felt at the time, Roland then realized he was thankful Susannah had left the path to the Dark Tower—it meant she wasn't another corpse on the stairwell. It had been Eddie that fell instead of the others at Blue Haven, and that had been so that Jake could die saving the writer. This allowed Susannah to save Roland in the small hut on Odd's Lane, and all of this existed so that Roland could stand where he was at this moment. Ka had decided, as ka always did. Yet he had not come back down the stairs for Dandelo.

Instead, with the delicacy and reverence that he had shown Eddie and Jake, Roland bent and picked up Oy, who was lying in Dandelo's shadow, his narrow face limp and lifeless. Roland saw the large hole that now ran through the bumbler's body from being skewered on the tree. ' _Olan…'_ The gunslinger heard Oy's voice speak his last word in his mind and remembered watching as the life bled out of him.

"Oy," Roland whispered, and he walked back to the landing where Eddie and Jake now sat, their faces aglow in what the gunslinger presumed to be early full daylight by now. Roland wiped at Oy's wound with the swatch of shirt he had used to clean Eddie and Jake, and did his best to push Oy's thick fur over the puncture. He bent and placed Oy on Jake's lap, under his hands, paused, and looked over his shoulder.

There was of course a final body on the stairs.

The gunslinger walked to the pale corpse that was half wrapped in black spider's legs and half hume—as if trapped when changing between forms. Roland found that he felt no more remorse for his half-son, shared blood of the Eld and of the Ram Abbalah—of the White and Red—than he had for any of the others he had ended. Despite his level of the Tower, Mordred rested in death as he had existed in life—forgotten and cast aside by ka and those around him. Mordred's body was far separated from any others, lying alone, and Roland was reminded of when Mordred had trailed he and Oy—always in shadow and by himself.

The birthmark on Mordred's heel glowed with a deep red-orange light. It was the mark of the Eld, and it pulsed with the Tower's call. Roland thought about stomping the mark until the glow snuffed out, but he began to walk away. This was not from pity or because Mordred was his blood. It was because it was done—he was at the top of the Dark Tower's stairs, not lying dead upon them, and there was still a little more work to be done.

Roland turned to the landing. Other than the rectangle of light where Eddie, Jake and Oy now sat, the back wall of the landing was dark and shadowed. It would be there, he was sure—he _felt_ it near him now through the Dark Tower's khef—along with a very large powerful presence near where he stood. He walked to the landing. Perhaps the top room was just on the other side of where he stood. Finally, he only had to come to the door, bid it open, and at last walk inside to the glory of the rainbow—to his destiny.

He paused in front of his fallen, made his awkward bow, legs dipping low and hands outstretched completely. "I am here now," he said, his own voice sounding foreign and awkward in the small space. "I wish and pray that you may be well met in the clearing at the end of the path, and I tell each of you thank-ya. Hear me, I beg." He began to walk again, paused, turned back and reconsidered.

"May I meet you there."

 **14**

As the gunslinger turned from the colossal stairwell, his ka-mates, and those who were sacrificed in his quest, a great weight left him, and the freedom he felt was much like when he had run between the roses of Can'-Ka No Rey and finally to the Dark Tower's base. At last, it was close, it was here— _he_ was here.

The Tower's call enveloped him as he walked, the central pillar's power pulsed beside him as he went, and the sunlight shone on his face as if to offer welcome. Roland again felt worlds and whens circling around him, spinning on the Dark Tower's apex, which he hoped was just above where he stood. He shaded his eyes from the sun and focused ahead. It would be just past the edge of sunlight—the door to the top room. At last he would _know,_ regardless of what awaited him beyond that door, finally he would _know._ He stepped past the light and into shadow on the landing. As the light left his eyes, he scanned the surrounding walls, floor to ceiling, then fell to his knees.

There was no door.


	7. Chapter 6: Divination

**Sixth Chapter**

 **Divination**

 **1**

Panic, no longer a pang but a physical force, flooded the gunslinger's body. It didn't make sense! The stairway had finally ended at the landing—seemingly right where the Tower's apex should be, and where the top room felt the _closest_ —but the landing was a dead end? Roland ran around the walls, feeling and pushing with his hands, but he found nothing. It didn't make sense.

Eyes wide, the gunslinger walked back towards the stairwell looking around the landing as he went for something—anything. He continued to the stairwell and checked for any sign he could have missed, but he only saw the central pillar and Mordred's body ahead of the countless others on the stairs.

He stopped.

Over the Tower's hum came Cort's voice blaring in his mind: _'How gods-damned slow you think, maggot!'_ Roland never had the level of Cuthbert's insight or Alain's touch—shine, do ya—his gifts were speed and endurance. Although these had saved him countless times since his training, his speed also caused him to miss critical details at important moments. As a result Roland had become more accustomed to _feeling_ when he had missed something—usually when his eyes moved faster than his brain could think—and he felt that way now.

The gunslinger forced his mind to focus, bent his eyes to observe _,_ not just see. He looked to the mural wall and saw a portrayal of himself so vivid, it could have been a _fottergraph._ He was standing at the stone pyramid with Patrick sketched into the background, his depleted right hand holding several rounds of ammunition, his left firing his father's revolver for the last time at the Crimson King's sneeches.

He looked back to the stairwell. Even in the new daylight he could see the orange-red pulsing glow from Mordred's ankle. Had he missed something here in haste? When he had placed Jake, Eddie and Oy at the top of the stairs he gave no thought to why Mordred's mark still had life while Mordred was dead. Thinking on it now, it seemed most likely that the Tower kept it alight. _'Because it's the mark of the Eld,'_ he thought.

Something about that thought began an awakening in Roland's mind. He wasn't fully aware of it—not yet—but he felt a combination of familiarity and some wisdom attempting to surface. He looked back to the mural wall and saw beyond the metallic rock pyramid, the lush blanket of Can'-Ka No Rey unfolded like a carpet leading to the Dark Tower's main door.

Roland walked slowly with the mural, retracing his steps back to the landing. He traced the path between the roses with his finger until the mural scene transitioned seamlessly to show a smaller representation of the gunslinger walking this path towards the base of the Dark Tower. He continued, awestruck, again noting the meticulous detail in the depiction, and traced the path until it ended. He pulled his finger back from the wall and looked from where it had been up to the ceiling. What he saw was an immaculate replication of the Dark Tower's front door.

This was the last image in the mural wall. At its base, he saw representations of his remaining revolver and aunt Talitha's cross, and that sensation of an awakening in Roland's mind continued as he stared at the mural wall, but it was still distant. He tapped the illustration of the concrete slab below the door repeatedly while he thought, recalling his approach to the Dark Tower. He closed his eyes and saw the roses standing at attention, heard their song, and heard the loud blast that had blown across the field. In his mind he saw the yellow flares of light begin to shine from each rose's center and into the sky where the Beams intersected above.

 _'In my dreams that blast is from my horn,'_ he remembered thinking. Yes, something about that thought felt right, correct somehow. Of course, after the battle of Jericho Hill the Horn of Eld had fallen out of the quest for the Dark Tower, but in his dreams...

 _'I remember thinking that coming to the Tower now was different than in my dreams,'_ Roland thought, still tapping the mural wall. He thought of placing his gunna and watching as the ghostwood door flashed to be like new again. Then he had entered the Dark Tower, the massive door had slammed shut, and he began his ascent.

But, that wasn't quite it either.

No, there had been _two_ booming sounds. He had entered the Dark Tower, and then there had been the _crack_ like a sonic boom as he passed through the door. He remembered this because the stench of burnt ozone had filled the air and blended with the sweetness of the roses outside. _Then_ came the clap of the door slamming shut after he had been inside. Yes, that was right, but what did this all mean?

 **2**

One thing made perfect sense. The mural had started at the base of the stairwell with a depiction of the beginning of Roland's life, and at the top of the stairs, the mural depicted present day—the end of Roland's quest. He traced the detail of the engraving, feeling the soft, subtle grooves in the ivory under his fingers like silk. In the center of the door, was the familiar hieroglyphic:

[symbol for] ' _Unfound'_ —just as it had been in the Ghostwood door at the base of the Tower. The Tower in turn continued to beckon him as his fingers ran over the ancient text: _'Commala-come-come,_ _Commala-come-come!'_

Roland stared, mesmerized, pondering how the details of his approach to the Dark Tower had been engraved in the wall so quickly. The answer seemed obvious, if only because it was the only explanation. Since Roland now stood in the center of all existence—Gan's existence—either the Tower itself, a servant of Gan, or even Gan himself had completed the mural, right down to his gunna laid at the door. Understanding suddenly seized him. The door—it was always a _door!_ From the drawing of his three all the way up to Susannah leaving the path of the Beam, and finally now, at the end of the mural, here was another door. Another door at the top of the Dark Tower's stairwell. _This_ was the door to the top room!

Eyes blazing, Roland reached for the mural wall and the massive handle etched perfectly in the ivory. He smirked as his hand grasped the handle, which, like the other balcony door, had been designed so well that you couldn't see it just from admiring the mural. He turned the knob, which _clicked_ loudly, and immediately the symbols in the door blazed white for an instant and fell dark once again. In their place, the gunslinger saw the other familiar hieroglyphic:

[symbol for] _'Found'—_ the characters once again were smoldering in the door.

Roland pulled. There was a piercing squeal as the hinges moved for the first time in an age, and the massive door in the mural wall groaned inward amid a shower of dust and ivory shards.

 **3**

As the door swung open, the idea that his quest could be just beginning, as it had countless times before, suddenly blared in his mind. The gunslinger had no understanding why he thought this—or why it was buried so deeply—but this notion ground in his mind like a small pebble trapped in the bottom of his boot. He had a fleeting impulse to raise his hands to shield his eyes from something terrible, and his hands actually had started to do this before sunlight washed over his face.

He was coming to the top room at long last! He would walk through the door, the sunlight would lift from his eyes, he would stand in the colors of the rainbow with dawn's light, and he would finally know and understand everything. He stepped forward, and as the sun's glare left his face, his mouth fell open and he grabbed the door to steady himself.

Roland was on a very large terrace, much greater than the balcony far below on another level of the Dark Tower. He was looking out and down from a height he had never experienced before, except when he had been in the air carriage with— _in_ —Eddie. He was so high in fact that even his eyes could no longer make out the individual roses far below. They instead appeared to merge into a plush blanket, wrapped around the Tower's base with the paths that coincided with the Beams and the occasional jutting rock interrupting the undulating folds. Now that the Beams were safe and time and direction were healing, the gunslinger saw immediately that the sun hung low in the West, as it had when he had come to the Dark Tower, and not East, where he had assumed it was rising to a new day. In fact, the sun appeared to be very near where it had been when he had entered the Tower, gods only knew how long ago. If it was not dawn, it had to be sunset—so how many days had passed since then?

He paused and considered. Roland studied the horizon, reflected, and reached a disturbing conclusion. _'It cannot be,'_ he whispered, and at the same time, it seemed that it was. To confirm this he looked to the sky, found Old Star and Old Mother, and noted his position between the two. He imagined a line between them, connecting the ancient lovers, which was always the easiest way to find true North without a compass. He then found West, checked the height of the rock shadows cast over the roses, and stared in disbelief. The sun was not almost in the same position as it had been when he had arrived at the Tower, it _was_ in the same position

It was the _same_ day.

Roland thought of the magnitude of time it had taken him to ascend the Tower's stairs, and was dumbfounded to believe that so much time had passed without the sun setting. _'Perhaps the Tower holds the sun for me,'_ he thought, ignorant of his arrogance.

The view from the balcony was the grandest sight he had ever seen, and he spared first a moment, and then another gazing as far as he could see in all directions despite his desire to find the top room. He looked down the immeasurable height of the Dark Tower and awed at the Tower's massive circumference at the base below. The entire structure somehow seemed vastly larger than when he had seen it from the scarlet field. In fact, Roland thought it likely the Dark Tower was so wide that during multiple points in his climb he would have been so far from the sun that it would have appeared to dim or even to have set.

He thought of setting his watch on the ground for Patrick before he had given in— _finally_ given in—to the Dark Tower's call _._ The hands had stopped, just as the pre-cogs in New York had said they might when he reached the Dark Tower. Regardless of the Beams being safe, it seemed time was no longer merely soft, but could no longer be trusted to be accurate. But nonetheless, did that mean that time had _stopped?_

Roland considered this possibility as he saw the final two things that he would ever see from a balcony on the Dark Tower. Once again, all thoughts faded to the back of his mind, his eyes widened, and the his mouth dropped open.

 **4**

Roland Deschain reverently bent to one knee, one hand remaining on the mural's door, the other covering his heart. Above and behind him, just to the left, not thirty feet above where he stood at that very moment, was a window pane. Beside this, the oriel window filled with the colors of the wizard's rainbow. In the center, a perfect circle of black glass seemed to hold all of the other tinted sections together.

The Dark Tower's top room stood majestically above him, and the gunslinger understood that he was finally, at very long last, at the end.

 **5**

Roland felt numb, amazed, and an insatiable urge to run at the same time. And he almost did run back into the Dark Tower to again search for the door to the top room, but he held to his training a moment longer, remembering that the Tower was both alive and a portal—which meant that it was also still dangerous.

When he had turned to walk back inside, Roland saw something above the mural door that made him think of the other balcony far below. More letters of the High Speech, also faded to the point of enigma were stamped into the Dark Tower's coaly exterior. As before, the entire prose was warped and unreadable from the passage of time:

T re h y od, ran d lo des,

Tov ew th ela ome

Is w hem an Ikn wth mal

Da tle st slu orn omy li s I se

Though far higher than the other excerpts, the gunslinger saw the great letters well enough. He thought it no coincidence that he was seeing a second, perhaps similar passage, and used all of his will to focus and memorize the fragments and letters. This took a moment longer to accomplish than the first piece had—as this was twice as long and severely jumbled and warped from the harsh lashings of time and weather. The writings could mean nothing, but they could also be a part of the khef that Roland shared with the Dark Tower. Either way, it was too late to leave such things to chance, or even ka.

When he was certain he had the fragments memorized, Roland went back inside the Dark Tower without another look over the balcony, rehearsing the letters he had seen. As soon as he was back inside, the mural door slammed shut behind him for the final time. The _crack_ was nearly deafening and reverberated across the small landing, reminding Roland of when he had first entered the Dark Tower's rotunda.

He stopped cold in his tracks as the report of the door closing faded. He felt the _something_ that had been trying to awaken in his mind finally surface. It suddenly made sense—the _crack,_ the letters on the Tower's exterior,the sonic boom, the great blast in the field—and he understood why he was unable to proceed.

There was one thing left to do here.

 **6**

Several things happened at the same time.

The gunslinger saw a collection of dust and off-white shards from the wall when the mural door had slammed shut. He knelt, aware that he again smelled _'ohzhone'_ lingering in the air, and focused on collecting his thoughts. Early in their quest, Roland and Eddie had a conversation about _'shrenks,'_ and how the human mind had an unconscious that functioned beneath one's own awareness. This had pleased Roland, for he knew it to be true from Vannay's teachings. He felt the thoughts awaken now as he knelt.

' _Stanzas_ , _'_ he thought, _'the words on the side of the Dark Tower are from sai Browning's stanzas_. _'_ He had read sai Browning's _Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came_ countless times after the writer had left it for him, but he had no memory of where the copy was now—lying amid the pieces of Ho Fat II seemed most likely. Roland closed his eyes, breathed deeply, then began to recite the corresponding stanzas that he had memorized.

"I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.  
As a man calls for wine before he fights,  
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,  
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.  
Think first, fight afterwards—the soldier's art:  
One taste of the old time sets all to rights."

He spoke the words aloud and slowly. That had been the first piece—the words above the door of The Prisoner on the lower balcony, he was certain of it. He recalled the other stanza more quickly after speaking the first:

"There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

For one more picture! in a sheet of flame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

The gunslinger wasn't sure which stanza the first had been, but he was sure that this was the final stanza. He was also suddenly sure that if he had discovered a way out to the other balconies on the Dark Tower, he would have found the other stanzas etched in the same fading, warped font. And why not? Was he not the childe Roland now come to the very Dark Tower from this poem?

The gunslinger opened his eyes and began to spread the dust from the mural door into a rough rectangle. In it he traced what he had seen on the first balcony above the Prisoner door:

E it yic o l ho e t la m at.

Oet at o tho d i me ses al t ri s

The great letters looked different when written on a flat, even surface. Without the curve of the Tower's exterior to distort the letters, the effect of the weather and warping disappeared. It only took a moment to see where the remaining letters belonged. Roland carefully traced them into the dust so that he saw:

Ere fitly i could hope to play my part.

One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

This did not match how Browning had written it, but it had been what Roland could see on the Tower's exterior. The gunslinger considered this for a moment, and then brushed the dust and ivory bits away, smoothing them out again. He next traced in the letters from what he had seen on the balcony near the top room's stained glass:

T re h y od, ran d lo des,

Tov ew th ela ome

Is w hem an Ikn wth mal

Da tle st slu orn omy li s I se

Again the gunslinger noted how different the letters appeared when drawn plain on the flat of the floor. It took just another moment to recall the words that fit in Browning's final stanza, and he drew them in quickly:

There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet,

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

"And blew," Roland finished aloud when he came to the final line.

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

Again, the order of the prose was incorrect, and the gunslinger supposed that it could have been due to the effect of centuries of erosion, but in his heart, he believed that it was something more. More than just ka or the wordslinger's creative power in his world, Roland thought it most likely the Dark Tower was showing him these specific phrases through their peculiar khef. This both disturbed and delighted him, as he supposed there simply weren't words in any language to express what it felt like to experience a connection like this to the nexus of time and space. The closest words he could think of, however, were bitterness and euphoria.

The bitterness he felt came from knowing that the Dark Tower had chosen for Susannah to leave and for Eddie and Jake to die, and had, in fact chosen the deaths of all the others that were displayed on the great stairwell, of that he was sure. His euphoria came from knowing he was now somehow in _all_ existences in some form and was _destined_ to fulfill Eld's ancient prophecy. The combination of these polar emotions and his level of khef collectively felt like everything around him would pull him in a different direction, tearing him limb from limb.

That was when he saw it.


	8. Chapter 7: Reckoning

**Seventh Chapter**

 **Reckoning**

 **1**

Something was terribly wrong, but the gunslinger hoped he was only seeing an illusion—another glam. He was wrong.

Somehow, someway, Roland saw a charred hume holding a small black globe kneeling beside Mordred's body on the stairwell. He also understood— _felt—_ this hume to be what remained of the Crimson King, but could not understand how this was possible. This creature was softly speaking to the deceased, perhaps as if it were alive or could still hear. Then, it lowered its head and bit and gnawed at Mordred's left calf, just above the glowing symbol of the Eld. Understanding came, and the gunslinger rose to his feet. The Crimson King watched through empty eye sockets that now were filled with deep red light.

For a moment they stared at each other in silence—ancient enemies each sworn to end the other. Roland saw the glam in the King's hand—Black 13—emitting its terrible dim glow even through the sunlight. His arm and hand looked as if they had been burned thin at their thickest sections, and the long, skinny fingers that cradled the wizard's glass were mere bone. The despotic ruler's cloak, once the majestic scarlet of power and ruin, was now dull and blackened. Even from where he stood, Roland smelled burnt flesh, and saw remaining tendons and bits of flesh in the King's eye sockets. Yet, the gunslinger sensed that the Crimson King still saw him through the glam, by the way he moved and pointed it about.

"Sooooooooo," his tattered voice lulled, and the aspersion made the gunslinger feel like clearing his throat. "Roland Deschain of Gilead comes at last to the Dark Tower at sunset." A pause while the husk of the tyrant once known as Los coughed wildly, "and relieves me of my eyes and body to end my claim to the Tower."

"Speak not, bondsman," Roland commanded in the High Speech, "tell how you are here."

"Are we not kin gunslinger? Thee and I? Have I not the same ability to access the Dark Tower as you, dear cousin?" the King gurgled.

"You are a half-bred afterthought that needs the mark of the true line of Eld or you would have gained the Dark Tower long ago, " Roland returned, not hesitating for even an instant.

The King hissed through lips that had mostly been erased from existence. "Nasty man— _conniving_ man!" He paused as a thin line of saliva filled, then spilled over the missing section of his lower lip. "Damned be you and yours what made me how I am now." The last word trailed off in a combination of what sounded like a sob and slurping noise.

"Quell your lies and pleas for pity, filth," the gunslinger snapped, "you have no claim to the Dark Tower as thee well knows."

"Heeeeeeeee!" the King managed. His voice was much quieter than when he had been on his balcony, but it sounded just as insane. "The Tower hasn't wasted all of what's left of you—AHH!—stay where you are!"

Roland had taken a step to his left, and had known he would be seen doing this. His care wasn't that he would be seen, but in how _long_ it would take the Crimson King, or whatever was before him, to notice through Black Thirteen.

"For all the efforts of yer little boy-lover, I still see you very well." His ghastly hand caressed Black Thirteen's glowing glass. "And you say true, gunslinger," Los coughed, "but we are both nonetheless in the Dark Tower, on a level very close to the top room. Yesssssssss, very close now."

Roland did not reply.

"You say nothing?" The King coughed so hard Roland saw droplets of black fluid flying from his mouth in Black Thirteen's glow. "How stunned you must be to realize that even _now,_ gunslinger, you will not gain the top room _—_ " His voice cut off, spewing more coughs and dark liquid.

"I will do what I must," Roland nearly growled, "what I'm _made_ for. You'll not stop me—you cannot stop me."

"Perhapsssss." The old despot was slowly moving towards him, but wasn't close enough to be a threat. "But the path forward is shut. You know what I say is true. For if not, find me the door to the top room if you can, son of Stephen, heeeeee!" Roland stared ahead, silent. The Crimson King moved in front of Mordred, guarding the body and the mark of the Eld he could use to gain the top room, wherever that was. He was also amazed to see that several bodies behind Mordred on the stairwell were missing.

"Even now, ignorance is your weaknessss,' the King hissed.

Roland took a large step towards the Crimson King and was encouraged to see the King flinch backward slightly. "Be done with your intimations, bondsman. Speak how you are here or still your tongue!"

"I came in the same door that you did." The King's teeth flashed brightly behind his scorched lips.

The gunslinger stood firm but fought to understand. Then it came to him: he had walked into the Dark Tower, awestruck, walking to the center of the room while the massive door was open behind him—to his back. There had been a tremendous _boom_ outside, and then another after he had entered as the door slammed shut.

"I sense your surprise, Roland, the utter _shock—_ how foreign that must feel to you, sure!" King Red mused.

Roland had smelled _ohzhone_ as he entered, which seemed out of place at the time, but he give it another thought in his excitement. He realized now this had to be from whatever door or path Black Thirteen had made to bring the Crimson King out of todash space. The gunslinger again heard the cries of a man that sounded as if he would have given his very life to stop some terrible torment:

" _Oh NO. Please not again—have pity, have mercy!"_ Then, a loud scream followed by the faint voice of the man in black, calling from the beyond as if he was speaking from under several thick pillows.

"… _but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct._ _May I be brutally frank? You go on."_

"Yessssss," the Crimson King lulled, chancing another step, "never for you, and never for me." Roland decided he would kick the damned glam out of the creature's hand if he came close enough and would then throttle his neck until he breathed no more, to hell with the prophecy that he could not kill the Crimson King himself and that the King was un-dead. If that didn't work, he would find a way to push him over the side of the stairwell and be done with him.

He quieted this idea as quickly as it had come to him as he made a horrifying realization: the screaming voice he heard far away was his own.

 **2**

Roland fought to suppress the ruminations about leaving himself vulnerable at the Tower's entrance _—_ something Cort would have crippled him for long years ago. In another two strides the King would be near enough for Roland to make an attempt on the glam.

"Might we set on together here in the hub of all existence?" Los asked, creeping closer. "For I hear many voices on the wind of eternity _—_ mine as well as your own _—_ perhaps it is ka that we join?"

Another step closer.

"Perhaps it is dark magic _—red_ magic," the gunslinger said, looking straight at Black Thirteen instead of into the King's empty sockets. Around them, the sound of the todash chimes blended with the Tower's hum.

"And one you'd no doubt have for yourself," the King hissed, moving Black Thirteen to align with the gunslinger, "for I see how your eyes bend towards it. Might you—" he paused, turning what was left of his ear slightly towards the glass as if listening to it, "try to take it from me soon, Roland?"

"I have no desire for the evil you hold," the gunslinger said plainly.

"Noooooo?" replied the King, his voice as course as sand, "I imagine that could be true, although you'd still have it away from me."

"I'd have away with it and you, so stay where _you_ are, tyrant," Roland said, knowing that the King would continue towards him regardless. He needed him to move closer yet.

"Noooooo," the King mused again heedlessly, "I imagine you'd much rather hold your beloved horn, would you not?" Another cough, another slight step. "The great horn of Eld?"

And with that, the thought _—_ the _thing_ _—_ that had been below Roland's awareness awakened fully.

He saw the final door within the mural wall in his mind. He saw his gunna laying at the Tower's doorstep, his father's gun and aunt Talitha's cross. In his dreams Roland had sounded the horn of Eld in the scarlet field and had placed it with the rest of his gunna before finally entering the Dark Tower. Earlier, when he finally entered the Red Fields of None in the flesh, there had been a great blast that was not from the horn of his ancestors.

 _'But it should have been,'_ Roland thought. No then, not a victory blast from the Dark Tower as he had thought at the time, but a warning call—a reminder that he would never see the top room without Eld's horn. Instead, the gunslinger had been trapped easily, like a rabbit in a snare, and the King and the Black had only to wait until he entered the Tower, or rather, a specific level of the Dark Tower, with the door open behind him, to set the ambush in motion.

The Crimson King was still cackling.

"Yesssss, I had only to follow you to the top," the King crooned, "I climbed in my true form below you on the underside of the stairwell, much as I had climbed up the side of the Dark Tower, while you made your path." He flashed another disturbing smile. "I so badly wanted to reach from under the stairs, snag your body, and savor breaking you with my own legs and jaw, one bite at a time. And I would have done so, had I known what I would find here at the top," he hissed, looking over his shoulder at Mordred."

"What you found—" Roland began.

"ENOUGH!" The King's voice deepened and his empty eye sockets narrowed. "Your shitting horn is gone, so there remains only one key. If you'll have the glam then TAKE IT! It's nothing to me—as I command it, it will serve _me_ alone, or I will crush it as I smashed the other globes with my bare handssssss!" The King held out Black Thirteen in front of Roland as if to emphasize this point. "I will use my own son's body as the key it is, find the top room, and finally fulfill the prophecy— _MY_ prophecy—and bring all of existence on its very knees before me!"

The Crimson King was still ranting, but Roland's ears were closed to his words, as time had slowed for the gunslinger. Clarity and stillness entered his mind as his senses heightened, bringing tranquility and balance to his spirit. Palaver was done, and the battle curtain fell around him. Here they still stood, ancient enemies, each sworn to end the other, meeting for the first time, and inside the Dark Tower itself.

 _'Not yet…'_ Cort's voice from far away in his mind.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion, but much happened in the next several seconds. As Black Thirteen's glow fell over him, Roland again heard his own voice screaming for something or someone to have mercy on him, and it was now much closer. At the same time, the Crimson King took a final step towards Roland.

' _Hold!"_ Cort's voice again in his mind, and more clearly than the Crimson King's, the blaring kamen, and even the Tower's hum.

Then, all around him, the gunslinger sensed something extremely powerful rise in intensity. It rose up around him and the Crimson King like a wave, making all of the hairs on his body stand at attention. The gunslinger saw a flicker of red light run up the King's body, and sections of his arms began to warble and flex. Roland had seen that light and movement before, and knew very well what came after it. It was time.

"…you can't win, Roland," the King was growling, "I am un-dead and no longer need you. So in my _truest_ form, I _will_ end—"

' _HILE!'_ Cort boomed in his mind.

Roland kicked, his leg a blur, his face granite. He sensed the King's surprise, and grinned as his foot connected with the charry arm holding the Black glam. The Crimson King cried out and stumbled a step backward as Black Thirteen was knocked from his bony hand. Roland darted around him, gaining the King's blind side while also moving between the King and Mordred. King Red struggled for a second but steadied after Black Thirteen simply hovered in the air in its cloud of dim, and then settled back to the King's grasp on its own accord. The Crimson King laughed hysterically, the remaining flesh on his face stretched in threads of burnt skin. Bright tendrils of red light flashed under his head and body, and several long and massive legs extended up and from behind him. The gunslinger was undeterred. His only move was to shove the Crimson King over the edge of the stairwell while he was changing into his spider form. If he couldn't kill the King, let Ka decide what happened after that.

But as the gunslinger began his advance, the Red King turned to meet him with an eerie speed while he was still in the process of changing. Black Thirteen, it would seem, was seeing all. The sensation of intensity and power around them climaxed, and Roland felt his own flesh begin to vibrate and tremble. There would not be another opportunity.

"And now the end," Roland commanded as he paced back towards Mordred—"At me then, red tyrant!"

As the King readied to leap a brilliant flash blinded Roland with white light. A second later, he felt _pulled_ upward, torn from where he had been standing and then he was soaring at brilliant speed. He cried out and heard the Crimson King do the same below. The force of being _pulled_ this way was incredible, his face and skin felt as if they would be torn off completely, and Roland wondered if this would be the last thing he would ever experience. He flew on like this only for several seconds, but it seemed much longer. The insides of his body were rattling and it felt as if he would be pulled apart from the strain. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the gunslinger hit something, and hard, and the world faded to black.

 **3**

When Roland became aware again, he felt intense heat from above. His mind was foggy with the strange ambiguity and amnesia that follows long sleep with vivid dreams. He heard many voices, but these were far away, beyond and above him perhaps, and sounded nothing like the Crimson King's or the voices from the Dark Tower. His vision was filled with grayscale nothingness and his guts were sour. A fleeting rush of sweat and fear filled his nostrils as quickly as it faded, reminding him of the stink of conflict.

He considered it must be daylight and felt thick, course grass beneath him with the heat from sunlight above him. Reaching in his blindness, lying prone on the ground, Roland patted his hand around the grass before him, searching for any indication of where he was. This wasn't helpful, and he considered crawling, but thought better of it immediately since doing so would make him a potential target in an unfamiliar venue. Then suddenly, the ground under Roland began to give way and slide.

He began clawing and crawling as he had atop the massive piling of dead on the Dark Tower's stairwell. The backs of his legs and forearms awoke and barked in sore protest. Roland felt he was losing this struggle, however, and his body began sliding downward despite his efforts. He canted and slid at an awkward angle, but not for long. As he helplessly clawed at the grass and the avalanche of small stones that slid with him, his left ankle hit something very hard and very stationary. He stumbled and his stomach smashed into this object, which felt like a large rock. He let out an _'ooooophh'_ sound on contact, but thew his arms around the rock's surface. His slide stopped with a jolt of pain that ran from his shoulders to his wrists.

Still without sight, Roland held fast to the stone, feeling both relief and despair. He was relieved to be alive at all, but he also realized his legs were hanging out over the edge of something—likely a drop-off or precipice. Given the faint smell of brine and the breeze from below, he surmised that he had been spared a fall far more intense—and most likely fatal—by the stone. He held to the rock tightly, blind, with no knowing of what to do next.

 **4**

An unknown amount of time passed with little change. He continued to hear voices and clamoring, but both were too far distant to be of any help. _'I'm in Mejis,'_ he thought, mentally mapping out the small bay where he, Alain and Cuthbert had spent a summer counting anything and everything that could be construed to be of use for fishing, _'I am somehow back in Mejis.'_ Roland wasn't sure how this was, but it soon wouldn't matter—his arms were losing strength and growing numb. It was only a matter of time before they both lost sensation and failed, and it wouldn't matter where in the multiverse he was. Sweat trickled from his brow to his neck and eyes, stinging his blindness with his own brine.

Then there was gunfire from above and the voices rose in tandem.

' _Yon is the sound of Farson's outpost group,'_ Roland thought, remembering the cries and calls of the posse that had followed his ka-tet into Eyebolt Canyon. His blood began to race and his nerves calmed somewhat with the memory of battle. The muscles in his arms bulged as he strained to adjust his grip. He managed to pull himself up several inches but could do no more as the ligaments in his arm made odd "clicking" sounds under the stress. High above he could hear the group of people gathering, calling out in hurried tones he did not understand. A battle was nigh—he could all but smell the blood and death.

Roland also had to act or accept death himself. The lubrication of his sweat under his hands became slicker with each moment. He was still flash-blind from the brilliant burst of light in the Dark Tower. There was only one option for escape. He lowered his body until his arms were extended to their fullest, relieving them of some of the weight. This placed an increased burden on his shoulders and lowered him to the point where there could be no easy recovery, but his arms immediately responded to the rest. The gunslinger tilted his head back so that he was looking to the sky. Then, using nothing other than the will for his idea to work, he opened his eyes to the sun. The brilliant light stung as it flooded in, but Roland kept his eyes open, focusing all of his energy on clearing his vision.

To his delight, he found that he was beginning to see the faintest outline of his hands, locked around a medium sized stone jutting from the ground. Feeling his hands slip yet a little more, he scanned around the rock slowly, allowing time for his eyes to adjust to the shadow-like images around him. Below and to the left of the stone was another smaller rock, clearly embedded into the side of the edge of the precipice.

Using the last strength in his arms and hands, the gunslinger began to swing his body to the left and then the right, undulating back and forth, slow and awkward at first, then gaining momentum with each swing. The smooth stone ground into his hands, and he soon felt the warm trickle of blood, adding to the sweat's lubrication. In another two swings he had enough momentum to place his boot on the smaller jutting stone, and thanked the gods as he pulled himself up, and onto the grass beneath him.

The gunslinger carefully used the larger stone that he had been holding as another foothold and made his way back to where the grass and pebbles became smooth again. His arms ached like mad, his stomach sore from having the wind knocked from him, but he was alive. He could see shadows and outlines of objects just in front of him, but nothing further than a couple feet. Thus, he could not see the small group of people gathering far atop of the rise in front of him. Nor did they see Roland, as their backs were turned to him as they faced down the other side of the slope.

Carefully, Roland looked behind him and the jutting rock—and the cliff just after it that fell all the way to the sea below. His stomach heaved at the realization of how close to falling he had actually come. Minding his steps, Roland slowly walked up and past where he had slipped. He saw other jutting rocks as he found his way. His vision was still blurry but he realized that these rocks were larger and had faces engraved into them. These totems were placed sporadically around and up the slope he climbed. He passed another and could see a third ahead and to his left. Above him, the voices rose in unison for the final time, and Roland realized with fascination and horror where he was.

' _I'm todash,'_ he thought, staring ahead into the grey-white with awe and confusion.

 **5**

Cuthbert Allgood was not having the best of days. In fact, he was pretty sure all of those left in the group had been falling short of their full potentials that day. On top of that, it was hot and sticky as balls, which he hated more than anything.

For some reason, he had been thinking of Mejis just then, remembering how he, Alain and Roland had lured Farson's henchmen into Eyebolt and to the ravenous thinny. He smiled as he remembered the victory, as this current campaign was certainly not the glory stuff of _those_ days. Quite the opposite in fact, Cuthbert believed he would die today, given they were far outnumbered and already had been mostly killed off. Well, that and the about five slugs or so he had taken in his torso that burned now with the dull and steady loss of blood.

Even then, the young gunslinger understood that what this short period of suffering was a necessary means to an end. For he had been taught and he had seen that all things served ka, which had bound them all to the Dark Tower, standing noble and forlorn in a great sea of blood-red roses unknown wheels away. So if death was to be his part in that service, then his life would be given in honor and glory.

Death was also the most logical ending, for what life would there be to live after this day? Jaime had already fallen to a sniper, and Alain, fresh back from DeMullet's flank—his throat hitched as he recalled the terror—for poor Alain was silent now as well. It wasn't dying that troubled Cuthbert, never think it. He was prepared to enter the clearing at the end of his path in search of the others that had fallen before him. What troubled him was that he would also be leaving the path to the Dark Tower, which, despite his usual sarcasm to Roland, he wanted to see quite badly. Instead, he would have to cry off his efforts, and very soon by the feeling. The irony stung like the heat of his gun wounds.

Bert also thought it ironic that everything, and everyone of them, would end here—atop a seemingly insignificant field named Jericho Hill. Pathetic. Their casualties were far greater than any other fight he had seen against the Good Man's forces, and Grissom, the leader of this particular herd of half-wits, had managed quite the coup d'état of sorts, backing what remained of the Affiliation up the side to the peak of Jericho itself. It was a perfect strategy, as beyond the apex was only the slow descent that then ended at the cliff over the sea, and in front of them the scores upon scores of soldiers that even then were advancing on the last of them. Death awaited either at the bottom of the cliff behind them, or in the sea of blue-stained assassins before them. The blue war-painted rebels screamed for their heads.

Worse still, the enemy looked to be a couple _thousand_ strong even now, despite the penultimate tet of gunslingers killing what must have been hundreds or thousands already. Cuthbert only had sight in one eye by then, the other had been gouged out of his head in combat, but he was sure they were still outnumbered at least one hundred and a half to one, and that the enemy, hungry for annihilation, was still advancing on them, even though they were cornered. Another sharp sting tore through his midsection, and Bert nearly laughed with ambivalence. _'One more on the pile,'_ he thought, backing further up the hill, out of the range of the flying slugs, bolts and arrows.

He looked down to his belt to reload and saw the horn of Eld dangling from the smooth leather. And it was then that an idea occurred to him—one final plan that seized him with a certainty that was nearly as strong as death: the time had come for their final charge.

 **6**

The gunslinger, now better able to see the slope's crest, saw the small group ahead and stopped in his tracks. A nostalgia passed over him as he looked upon himself, younger by leagues of years, instructing those who remained how to proceed—how to die well. Bullets and bolts flew wildly over the peak as he limped towards the crest of Jericho Hill, and Roland understood immediately why he was here.

Some in the group ahead were still blurry and hard to identify with their backs turned to him, so Roland moved ahead cautiously, keeping bent low and under the assail of artillery which flew above and around the final dozen—the last of Gilead and those sworn to the Dark Tower. As he moved closer he saw Cuthbert, partially because of the blood stains on his face from losing his eye, but also because he stood next to the younger Roland, ka-mates so close they should have been brothers. He remembered very well what they were talking about, and it all had been Bert's idea of course—one final charge to both their doom and their glory, taking as many of the bastards with them as possible. Not only was it an insane idea, it was the _only_ option they had left.

At that instant, sharp heat erupted in Roland's right shoulder, and he saw he had been grazed by a stray round from the ambush. A trickle of blood trailed down his bicep and to his elbow, where it dripped unceremoniously to the grass below. Roland immediately rolled to his left and behind the cover of one of the stone faces. However he had come to be at Jericho Hill again, it was clearly not by the Black glam or todash.

 **7**

For a moment, Cuthbert believed that he was already passing into the clearing.

He was just about to tell Roland they should charge the remaining blue-faced traitors below, for what alternative did they have? They would never surrender and never throw themselves over the cliff. Gunslingers knew no such cowardly acts. He had turned then to wipe fresh blood out of his remaining eye so he could see to charge, and behind him, walking up the slope towards the Affiliation was a man—a man who looked so worn, beaten, old and _rough_ that for a moment Bert felt that his own wounds were not so bad in comparison. Worse, perhaps, Cuthbert felt that he somehow _knew_ this man, even though he had never seen him before in his life.

No, that wasn't it either. Rather, he had never seen him as he was _now_. He smiled and began to laugh.

Walking up behind the flank was the man that Roland Deschain of Gilead would become.

 **8**

Had he lived, Cuthbert could not have explained how he knew this so quickly. He also could not have explained the intense instinct to remain in place and not draw attention to the elder Roland coming upon the last dozen survivors. Cuthbert thought he had nearly the same chance of seeing the man Jesus walking up behind their merry band, but for all of that he was sure it was Roland alright—he saw that his face had become that of his father's—and it looked just as stubborn and unwavering as Steven's ever had.

Relief washed over him as he felt distant hope for their cause. However, Cuthbert also understood— _felt—_ that he could not watch adult Roland come towards their group. Somehow, he _knew_ that he could not be seen staring at a man who, by all accounts, was not supposed to be there, not supposed to be seen, maybe not even supposed to be _alive_. Bert instead turned away with some effort, cleared his throat, and called to younger Roland.

* "Roland! We've been betrayed! We're outnumbered! Our backs are to the sea! We've got em right where we want em! Shall we charge?" Cuthbert smiled in between moments of laughter, unaware that what he had just said would remain in Roland's mind for the rest of his life—unaware that it was one of the most important things he had ever said, because it kept both versions of Roland from seeing each other.

"Aye!" young Roland boomed, "Aye, very well. Ye of the castle, to me! Gunslingers to me! To me, I say!"

Cuthbert began laughing all over again, unable to stop himself. "As for gunslingers, Roland," he said, turning away from the elder form of his leader, "I am here. And we are the last." As he turned from elder Roland, Cuthbert laid his left hand in the small of his back. He held up his first two fingers, hoping that the gunslinger could see them against his dark shirt in the midday sun. _'Wait,'_ was the signal, using a system of sign from when they were apprentices.

' _He makes it,'_ Bert thought, laughing all over again, _'somehow, the stubborn son of a bitch actually makes it!'_ Cuthbert realized that younger Roland had been looking at him for several seconds, as if evaluating his condition. Cuthbert made his own quick assessment of his young dinh, and found that he had taken several gunshots himself. Then without warning, the young leader embraced him, even as Cuthbert laughed his final moments away. He felt a burning urge to look over his shoulder to see what the man that was a ringer for Steven Deschain was doing, but restrained with the last ounces of his life.

"We're going into them. And will accept no quarter," younger Roland said to the last of them.

"Nope, no quarter, absolutely none," Cuthbert said, no longer trying to keep younger Roland distracted—the soothing curtain of pending battle was now doing that just fine, say thank-ya.

"We will not accept their surrender if offered."

"Under no circumstances!" Bert agreed, thinking of the elder Roland, from the future, who clearly had survived not only Jericho Hill, but for a lifetime beyond. He laughed still more, harder than ever. "Not even should all two thousand lay down their arms." *

Younger Roland stared past Cuthbert, directing his speech to the remaining survivors so that all could hear amid the gunfire. Bert looked down again at the horn of Eld. Instead of giving the horn back to him, he had told Roland to remember to get it once he died. This was despite what he told Roland about his ability to sound it sweeter than he ever could. The truth was, he wanted to hold it for just a bit longer. The horn comforted him because it was the culmination of what their quest had become—the battle, the Good Man, the Dark Tower, and even his death. Roland could reclaim his horn once he had died, when it no longer mattered to—

He gasped. Why was Elder Roland here _really?_ It certainly was not to win the battle—that ship had sailed long ago. No, there was more at work than met the eye, but one thing seemed clear: Roland had never picked up the horn, the last remaining mark of the Eld other than his father's guns. And how could he? They were about to charge the enemy and die doing so. No one expected anyone to survive this ambush, so how could he?

Bert grinned. Except he _did_ somehow survive. Like as not it wasn't clean or pretty, but he survived and had gone on. By the looks of him, Roland had gone on quite a bit after—Cuthbert's eyes widened. Somehow Roland had gone on all the way to the Dark Tower. Roland needed the horn for the Dark Tower—he all but could _feel_ it, and _hear_ it in his mind as if someone was whispering it in his ear. _'Stubborn son of a bitch!'_ he thought again, and laughed. This shit-show of a day was finally starting to make some sense, and instead of it being one of the worst days in his life, it could be one of the most important. Even _the_ most important. He lifted the horn and looked back over his shoulder while Roland was instructing the charge.

 **9**

Roland watched with deep reverence as the final few ranked in file and readied. He had seen Bert's sign to wait, although barely, and had stolen behind another of the jutting rocks, but he was confused _._ Cuthbert had seen him and he had been grazed by a bullet—all of which couldn't happen if he was todash. Somehow, he truly was at Jericho Hill.

If anyone else had seen him, including himself, they made no indication, for they too were anxious with the call of battle. He knew what was to come, yet was helpless to watch as the last gunslingers and soldiers of Gilead moved into position while his younger self barked out what he had then thought to be his final orders. Roland watched with a bitter irony, for next came the charge and what he had truly believed to be the end. And yet, somehow he was here again, alive and in the flesh, to watch his friends die all over again. He saw Cuthbert and felt the sting of loss all over again. He was all but dead already, and most men would've died long before from lesser wounds, but Bert had remembered his father's face and had stood true till the end.

That was when the gunslinger saw it. As younger Roland ran around the last of the Affiliation, Cuthbert untied the horn of Eld from his belt and held it out in front of him. ' _The horn!'_ he exclaimed in his mind. _'I ask him to give it back to me but he will not. And he tells me to remember to pick it up. And I don't.'_ He watched the younger version of himself run back to the front of the charge on the crest and the gunslinger realized that going back to get the horn of Eld had never really been in his or Cuthbert's mind—only how to kill off as many enemies as possible before dying.

It seemed so insignificant, a simple horn sworn to a family line passed on through generations, lost on one of the most significant days in his life. What a mistake it had been—not only in forgetting the horn, but underestimating its importance in his haste. A simple horn, that was also a key to the Dark Tower—to _everywhere._ When was a rose not a rose? When it was _everything._

Then the command came that would bring about the end to all but himself. Young Roland turned to Cuthbert as he arrived back at the point, prepared to both deal and accept death, and the gunslinger knew the words without needing to hear them spoken:

* "Then blow that fucking horn." *

Cuthbert stepped out to young Roland's right, lifted the horn of Eld to his lips and blew with what both versions of Roland thought was incredible strength despite his fatal wounds. The blast resonated across the hill and valley, filling the open space in long pulsating waves that swayed even the thickest grass like a stout breeze.

* "And now, my friends—HILE!" * younger Roland shrieked, ripping his revolvers from both hips and running ahead down the face of Jericho Hill, the six-guns of his father thundering as he did. Behind the small flank, elder Roland broke his cover and moved up the hill and towards Jericho's crest.

"HILE!" the others cried, following younger Roland without question. As the last members of the Affiliation sprinted down the front of Jericho Hill, elder Roland watched helplessly as they dipped below the horizon, bound for a painful end. Just before they all disappeared from view, he saw Cuthbert slow and fall slightly behind the pace. Being at the front of the charge, Roland at the time had never seen this, as he had been several strides in front of the formation. It seemed that none of the others took notice either, perhaps assuming Bert was nearer to death than they thought, perhaps because they too were in the curtain of battle rage.

00000000000000000000000As he slowed, Bert raised the horn yet again and let fly a final reverberating blast that dropped and fell across the hill and valley in incredible waves that were like the resulting ripples like a stone cast into a still pond. Roland remembered that he had seen actual fear in the blue faces that awaited his platoon when that blast had erupted despite the fact that the assault was impossibly outnumbered, and smiled.

While the others charged forward, Cuthbert guided his steed perpendicular to the hill and slowed his horse to a walk. Their eyes met a final time, and Roland could feel that Cuthbert saw him, and saw him for who he was very well. He wondered what was going through ol' Bert's head as he looked upon the older man that Roland would become.

Cuthbert never stopped his mount, nor could he have been told to do so, for his mind was also consumed with the glory of battle and an honorable end. He again erupted in a bout of laughter that told Roland that he somehow understood what was happening, even in death's shadow. Bert tapped his chest and raised his arm to Roland— _hile, gunslinger_ —then turned away and dropped the horn of Eld into the thick grass as he rode, laughing all the while. Roland saw Cuthbert violently shake in his saddle as he rode away, perhaps taking another gunshot for his trouble. Nevertheless he regained his composure, sat upright one final time, and disappeared beneath the horizon in a declaration of gunfire and laughter.

 **10**

The gunslinger looked to the top of Jericho Hill with a lump in his throat. It all made sense now. Cuthbert laughing to his death, truly being at Jericho Hill, how the Crimson King followed him up the Dark Tower's stairwell, the horn of Eld missing from his gunna in the mural wall, and the excerpts from Browning's poem that he had seen on the Tower's exterior.

Ere fitly i could hope to play my part.

One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

and…

There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet,

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set

"and blew," he said aloud.

There was no other explanation—the powerful force in the Dark Tower had brought him back to Jericho Hill. Perhaps this was the Dark Tower itself, perhaps some reaction from himself, the Crimson King and the Dark Tower existing so closely at the same time. Regardless, the gunslinger thought the Tower or Gan the most likely explanation. The Tower could have easily chosen to send him here, much like it had chosen Jake to die to save Stephen King, and now it was time, as the stanza said, for him to play his part.

The gunslinger saw the silver mouthpiece of Eld's horn peeking out between the tall grasses and walked to it quickly. With his companions gone, engaging the enemy below, Roland could again hear himself screaming from far away, over and over, as if playing on some sort of machine like the voice boxes in Andy Messenger Robot (many other functions) and the guardian Shardik.

 _"Oh NO. Please not again—have pity, have mercy!"_

 _"…But not for you, gunslinger. Never for you."_

Roland's heart sank as he walked. He again would finally have the horn of Eld, but he could blow into it until he could breathe no more now for all it was worth. Wherever the Dark Tower _was_ at that point—

As bent to pick up the horn, he saw the valley below, and he was unable to look away. The battle was already ended. It had taken mere moments to decimate what had remained of his fellowship, and he could see their bodies scattered across the green flat below. For all that had been invested in the quest for the Dark Tower and the war planning against what remained of the Good Man's forces—it had all been lost in a matter of moments, as it always was.

Defeat filled Roland's heart as he thought of the Crimson King, who if still inside the Dark Tower had no doubt taken Mordred's leg and now held the other key to the top room. He wondered what would happen to the Dark Tower if that were true. Would the top door magically appear? Would the stairwell somehow now extend just few feet further up to where he had seen the panels of stained glass? Or could the Crimson King share in the strange khef with the Tower as Roland had and that would lead him to the top room?

He stared at the horn below, unbelieving. The smallest, most insignificant detail—back to haunt him and end what he had been the culmination of his entire life. And to top all of that, blind to his own ignorance, he had walked right past Eld's second key—had kicked Mordred out of the way, in fact, almost had kicked him right off the stairwell. He had known this and had left the only remaining key to the top room for the Crimson King to claim as if it meant nothing to him!

He clenched his teeth together so hard he thought they might shatter right out of his head.

If the Crimson King had the key, it was only a matter of time, perhaps moments, until he opened the top room and worked whatever evil he could still manage in his current form. Then, it wouldn't matter what was inside the top room, but what was _coming_ to the top room. The Tower would likely fall, tearing the thin threads of existence between the worlds apart as it did, and everything would end. And in the resulting darkness and chaos, the Crimson King would finally reign over his discordia.

* * *

Quoted citation:

* King, S. (2003). _Wolves of the Calla_. Hampton Falls, N.H: Donald M. Grant, Publisher.

** King, S. (2004). _The Dark Tower._ Hampton Falls, N.H.: Donald M. Grant, Publisher.


	9. Chapter 8: Found

**Final Chapter**

 **Found**

 **1**

Roland felt an urge to kick the horn of Eld when he came to it, but he looked again to the battlefield below instead. Scores of dead were already being piled and lit ablaze. He watched several people that were on fire fall to the ground and stop moving as they passed into the clearing. He counted them lucky. He looked back to the horn and saw the ground darken at his feet. _'Now comes the rain,'_ he thought, remembering the storm that erupted after he had escaped from one of the burning piles of bodies so long ago. Thunder crashed and lightening flared as Roland picked up the horn, and as he did he saw a mammoth shadow on the ground rise and suffuse past where he stood and fall over the crest of the hill and into the valley below.

But instead of mere rain clouds Roland saw an enormous creature standing to full height, which blotted out what remained of the daylight. Rain began to fall then, first in random fat droplets, then a shower that quickly turned into sheets that pounded the turf, leaving tendrils of steam rising in the heat. The beast before the gunslinger stood on several pairs of thick, bristly legs on either side of its bloated swell of abdomen, and waved several more pairs in the oppressive air, crashing them together in rage. In the center of the large abdomen was a face—a terrible, eye-less face, which glared at Roland with eternal hatred. Roland felt the slimmest pang of hope.

It was, of course, the Crimson King in his true form—that of the Ram-Tete, or "Great Red King."

 **2**

" _SO COMES ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER INDEED!"_ the King boomed. His voice was far deeper and even than his hume form. At first Roland saw numerous legs waving about in the air, but he quickly saw the Crimson King had eight legs stemming from his abdomen, but unlike Mordred, the first of the rear and front pairs branched off into three smaller stems each, creating finger-like extensions. In addition, Roland saw that the front set of these divided not into actual limbs, but into thick metal spikes, which clashed in the air like giant blades.

 _"SO COMES ROLAND TO HIS DEATH, SAYS I!"_ The King's empty eye sockets blazed to life in a deep red glow. _"FOR YOU CANNOT END ME, BUT I WILL SEND YOU TO THE CLEARING WITH A BROKEN, HEADLESS BODY THAT'S BEEN SUCKED DRY TO ITS CORE, HHEEEEEEEEEEE!"_

The gunslinger stood perfectly still, but his mind was racing. This was not from fear, but hope—slim hope that if the Crimson King was now with him on Jericho Hill, he was not in the Dark Tower, and the top room remained safe. The King stamped his legs and shifted back and forth before letting fly a great growl that the gunslinger could feel shaking in the ground. No matter. He had believed that he would die at Jericho Hill when he had been much younger, and he believed that he would have the opportunity again on the same day, perhaps hundreds of years later. If he could not claim the top room, than he would die ensuring that the Crimson King did not either.

 _"SAY YOU NOTHING?"_ The King snarled, _"WILL YOU GO WITHOUT A WORD?"_

Roland inspected the beast and then he saw it—on one of the King's front leg branches on the right side, was Black Thirteen. It hung at the end of the leg stem like a small jewel in comparison to the King's awesome height and size. There was also a faint orange glow on the leg beside the glam. Roland squinted and saw Mordred's leg was held tightly in the extension beside it. _'And yet you are here,'_ Roland thought, _'you have the key to the top room and you are here, thank the gods!'_

 _"YOU HAVE NO WEAPON, GUNSLINGER—"_

Lightning sparked to the ground, striking one of the large stone faces behind Roland on the slope. He whirled on his heels and saw the smoking black hole it left. Below on the front side of Jericho, the blue-painted rebels had stopped moving, as if frozen in time. Roland saw that even the flames from the fires on the dead piles were perfectly still. He turned back to the spider, who stomped its front legs then fell prone, preparing to pounce. This halved its height but it still stood at least twice as high as the gunslinger. The ground shook as the giant spider shifted positions.

 _"—I WILL BE THE TOWER'S CHAMPION—"_

The Crimson King's voice faded in the gunslinger's ears. It was the glam, Roland understood—the Black was giving the Red King sight, it was bringing Jericho Hill rain and hail, and it had slowed or frozen time as if marking this moment in history. He remembered the faces of his fallen comrades and how they were ended so quickly. And as was true for countless contests before, Roland knew this battle would be over in mere moments as well.

 _"—I DEFY THE ELD AND THE WHITE AND I WILL FELL THE DARK TOWER, HHHEEEEEEEEEE!"_

The gunslinger considered the terrain once again, and noted the distance to the cliff's edge. Then the blanket of battle rage was upon him, chilling his emotions, steadying his hands, clearing his sight and mind. The sound of the pelting rain and thunder faded away to a dull noise, the flashing lightning to small sparkles. And then, amid the massive storm, Roland of Gilead spoke. For the first time, the words were not those that he had taught to his ka-tet, for he knew that lesson very well. Instead, he spoke a new mantra, and found that it readied his hands just as well.

"Ere fitly I could hope to play my part." He spoke in a normal voice, eyes focused on the Crimson King. "One taste of the old time sets all to rights."

Seemingly from far in the distance, the Crimson King paused his tirade, his empty eye sockets burning hot and scarlet. _"DOES THEE SPEAK, ROLAND? WHAT FINAL WORDS WOULD YOU SAY?"_

"There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met—to view the last of me, a living frame—" He secured the strap of Eld's horn around his neck and through his right arm, allowing the instrument to hang to his chest. He remembered Cort and the early test of his manhood.

" _Have you come with your chosen weapon?"_ Cort had asked.

" _I have,"_ he had replied, although his hawk David had been more of a hidden advantage than a weapon. He touched the horn's mouthpiece. Without his gun, this would have to now have to be his hidden advantage.

"I saw them and I knew them all. And yet, dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set..."

 _"I'LL WAIT NO MORE GUNSLINGER! SAY YOUR WORDS TO WHATEVER GODS YOU WILL, HHEEE! FOR NOW COMES YOUR END! AAHHHHHHHHHH!"_

"...and blew."

Roland was right—it was all over in the passing of mere moments.

 **3**

The Ram-Tete launched forward, racing across the short distance to the gunslinger. Roland stood firm, understanding that his plan was the _only_ possible plan and that it simply _had_ to work, or the Crimson King would kill him, and likely then collapse the Dark Tower using Mordred's leg to unlock the top room.

When the monster had covered half of this distance, it dropped low to the ground, then sprung into the air in one eerie fluid motion. Roland saw all of this and remained in place. In a second the Crimson King soared over Roland, his front leg-knives extended.

The gunslinger made his move.

Holding the horn in place around his neck with one hand, Roland took three very quick sprints forward, his legs pumping like pistons. At the third step, he slid to the ground on his side and rolled as hard as he could forward, cradling the horn as he did.

An instant later, the spider's front knife-legs plunged into the ground. At the same time its rear legs extended tall and leaning forward, so as to shift most of the King's weight to its front to pin its prey. Roland felt the sting of fresh cuts on his right arm, and saw that several of the beast's bristly hairs on its abdomen had cut near his bullet wound as he rolled past its sinking stomach. In the last second the gunslinger was under the spider's body, he saw the blazing red eye sockets right above him, narrowed to slits, raging. They glared towards him, glowering, burning and hating him as they had from the balcony on the Dark Tower.

Roland had known that running _towards_ the spider and then rolling _under_ it meant to tempt death. Yet, he had also watched Mordred snare prey as he followed he, Susannah and Patrick on the last leg of their quest, and knew that if the Crimson King attacked in the same manner, there would be a small space between the King's abdomen and the ground where he could attempt an escape. In addition, Black Thirteen would not be able to see him from this angle.

There was still hope, and the gunslinger smirked as he rolled out between the spider's legs on the right side. Thunder clapped as Roland rolled into the downpour, grasped a handful of weighty stones made from where lightning had struck and shattered the stone face earlier, then rose in a flat-out run. As he rounded the spider's right flank, the gunslinger saw the beast smashing his front leg-blades into the ground over an over in an effort to finish an enemy that he could no longer fully see. The spider gnashed its maw and roared into the storm. It was time. The rest of Roland's plan was simple—take away the Crimson King's source of power and sight.

Take away Black Thirteen.

It was a risky plan, he knew, as there was no way to account for what would happen when— _if—_ Roland was successful and the glam was destroyed. Predicting the outcome of such powerful evil was just not something one could estimate, but to do nothing meant risking the Dark Tower and the top room. Roland knew he'd have little time once the beast discovered he wasn't pinned under it, and that realization would happen very quickly. He felt silly and vulnerable putting all of his eggs into one basket, but the success of his plan centered on Black Thirteen being held by the spider's leg and nothing else. Roland was relieved when he ran around the spider's flank and saw the glam blazing its infinite dark light in its raised leg. This leg was moving about, and the gunslinger realized that the King was trying to angle the glam so the spider could watch it stab and feed on the gunslinger's body, which it assumed was under its front legs.

Roland opened his palm and removed one of the larger stones with the sharpest edges that he had scooped into his hand as he had rolled into the open. He didn't remember much about being enthralled in the pink glam after leaving Mejis, but he did recall that while the glam felt strong and solid, it also felt _thin_ _._ Roland hoped this memory was accurate. The Crimson King would know what was happening quickly, but the real trick was in keeping him from knowing as long as possible. And that meant that it all came down to the first throw.

' _Focus maggot!'_ Cort barked in his mind as he pulled his right arm back over his head. The gunslinger saw the path of the first stone before it ever left his hand, even accounting for the rain and wind. Roland released with all of his strength, and the stone soared true through the rain and struck the Black glam straight on, and bounced to the ground. The gunslinger had no idea if he had damaged it or not, and knew that he _could not_ know standing from this distance—only that he had to keep moving. He darted towards the spider's rear on the same side just as the leg holding Black Thirteen snapped around, searching for what had hit it. The spider roared again, however, and the leg went back to the work of trying to find an angle to see Roland pinned dead to the ground.

He had to keep moving.

As this happened Roland ran towards the spider's front and threw again, this time on the run. The second stone struck the globe and ricocheted off the smooth glass, but struck one of the King's bristly legs. The massive spider turned on him immediately with an uncanny liquidity, front leg leveling the glam for sight, and then it was charging forward with unnatural speed.

There was only an instant to act. Roland flung the last of the stones as hard as he could, his arm and shoulder straining as he threw. The final rock cut into the side of Black Thirteen, and even in the downpour Roland saw a small shard of black glass break from the globe. The Crimson King slowed and listed somewhat to one side and began to run off center to where Roland stood. Roland saw the glam spill out some of its dark light— _dim_ light—and a massive shadow erupted from the hole in the glass, filling the air around it with blackness. This was exactly what the gunslinger hoped for, as although he had been sure that mere stones could not destroy Black Thirteen, he had needed them to damage it for the next part _—his_ part, as the stanza said.

" _NASTY MAN!"_ The King boomed, _"DYING MAN! HOW YOU'LL PAY! HEEEEEEEE! HOW—YOU'LL—PAYYYY!"_

The spider slid to a stop, rising on its rear legs and clashing its front leg-blades. The limb that held the Black adjusted back and forth, and the gunslinger knew that it was time. He raised the horn of Eld, eyeing it as he leveled it at the glam. There was deep magic in Black Thirteen that kept it alive and as powerful as it was, but there was deep magic in Eld's relic as well. How else could a mere horn serve as a key to open the Dark Tower, the most important structure in all of existence? So, magic would meet magic, and ka would decide the outcome.

Roland blew with all the breath he could manage. The magnificent blast filled the air and even overcame the cracking thunder. The resonating soundwaves once again cast out from where Roland stood, rippling across the landscape as they went. The gunslinger watched as the waves fell first on the grass around it, and then the spider. As these waves hit the weakened glam's glass, Black Thirteen exploded instantly, throwing glass shards out several yards before falling to the ground. One of these shards fell near Roland's boot, and he saw that it was glowing with the dim of todash space.

" _EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"_ The Crimson King screamed while turning randomly, again blinded, but the gunslinger barely heard this—his mind was filled with the horn's sweet music.

Near the Ram-Tete's lower legs, thin streams of the dim light from the glass shards rose and coalesced above the ground in the rain. The storm continued, and the congealed cloud grew quickly in size and began to rotate with the wind. The gunslinger's clothes began to flap wildly and the thick grass on the slope was blown nearly flat to the ground.

 _'Run!'_ Cort's voice blared in his head.

Roland ran.

 **4**

The gunslinger ran into the wind, and the resistance from this slowed him greatly. Still, he ran out and around the Crimson King, re-aligning himself with Jericho's crest. As Roland ran to the other side of the expanding cloud, he then felt _pushed_ from behind with the building wind now at his back. He could see no more than several steps ahead, but he felt the ground under his feet begin to slope downward. He continued this direction, away from the Crimson King and down the slope, moving around the stone faces and finally to the ledge where he had hung from the protruding rock while waiting for his sight to return.

The wind was now roaring, and looking up the slope, the gunslinger could see rocks nearly the same size of Black Thirteen being sucked up in the rotating splendor. One of these hit the Crimson King as he raced in zigzag paths back and forth around the _dim_ light and storm, searching for the gunslinger. Roland doubted that he would be heard, but he nonetheless drew in a great breath and bellowed with all of his being.

"TO ME, TYRANT OF END-WORLD, TO ME! HEAR ME VERY WELL!" Although Roland could barely hear his own voice, the massive spider turned instantly, aligning itself with the sound of his voice. "YOU WOULD END ME AND I YOU—AT ME THEN, FOUL BEAST, COME THE RAM-TETE OF THE RED TO ROLAND OF GILEAD AND THE _WHITE!_ "

The spider lowered its head, roared, and tore across the remaining space that separated them.

The rotating cloud where Black Thirteen shattered was now spiraling close to the sky like a stationary tornado. The wind was still increasing, and pulled at Roland's skin. He could barely keep his footing as a result, but this was critical to his plan. He would sound the horn to guide the blind Crimson King further towards him, and then drop and hang from the stone on the side of the cliff as he had earlier. Since he couldn't kill the King, and given the spider's speed, Roland hoped the Crimson King would charge right off of the cliff and find a second death in the sea below.

The spider was close, but was also moving off course by the cyclone behind it. Still, if the Crimson King continued this way, he would still run right off the cliff. _'Yes, come this way,'_ the gunslinger thought, and he let loose one of lasts breath he would ever blow into the horn. As the blast resonated across the slope the Crimson King adjusted his path and charged towards the gunslinger. Roland raised his free arm in triumph as he blew and prepared to fall to the jutting stone.

Then there was a brilliant flash right in front of him, and the gunslinger saw no more.

 **5**

At the second Roland raised his arm lightning struck the wide bronze ring on the end of the horn's bell. The gunslinger immediately went limp and fell to the ground. As Roland collapsed, the soundwaves from the horn's blast channeled and conducted the lighting so that for a mere instant, thin bolts of lightning flared out all around from where Roland had stood. Some of these struck the Ram-Tete as he charged, and the spider crumpled to the ground and slid down the slope towards the cliff.

Above on the crest, the swirling cloud from Black Thirteen intensified at its final moment—the cyclone expanded and spread across the hill, pushing everything it touched outward. This lasted several seconds and created a large updraft before the cloud suddenly and quickly contracted into itself, snuffing out with a bright flash and loud _BOOM!_ The Crimson King slid into one of the stone faced rocks, flew into the air, and crashed back to the ground in an uncontrolled tumble, headed straight for Roland and the cliff. Then, the wind from the collapsing cyclone came under the King's body and pulled the spider into the air, leaving its limp rear legs dangling and dragging in the grass behind it. The Crimson King soared over the gunslinger, and the wind ceased as the cyclone imploded.

The Ram-Tete sailed out and over the cliff's edge, and as the cyclone ended, fell towards the sea below, but not before one of the spider's rear legs snagged Roland. The gunslinger's body rolled backwards helplessly across the short distance to the cliff, and an instant later he rolled out over the jutting stone that had saved his life earlier and off of the cliff.

 **6**

…

…

…

…

There was only the still of darkness.

…

…

…

…

Time passed in unknown quantities and nothing moved.

…

…

…

…

Blankness consumed an existence that was soundless, sightless, and thoughtless.

…

…

…

…

There was only the still of darkness and the vast empty void of nothingness.

 **7**

Sometime later (hours, days, weeks—there was no way to tell) there was sound. Somewhere close, a bird called, then faded quickly away until there was nothing.

…

…

…

Then, far away, the beautiful sound of music, airy, light, and sweet.

…

…

Sometime later, awareness of soft silk touching his bare skin, and the beautiful song slowly become louder.

…

Sometime far later, a dim sliver of light began to glow as the song became closer, just before consciousness returned and he was aware once again.

' _I'm in the clearing,'_ he first thought.

Roland blinked open eyes that felt as if they had been closed for years and saw at once that he was not in the clearing. The sky above him was the same shade as the light he had seen coming from unconsciousness. He immediately recognized the music as the rose's song, now full and warm in his ears. His mind was slow and foggy, but remembered sounding the horn of Eld at the cliff at Jericho Hill, seeing a brilliant flash, and feeling as if he had been pushed by a set of giant hands outward and then plummeting downward. He felt his chest and was relieved when he felt the horn was still there. It was charred black and splintered at the end of its bell, but was otherwise intact.

The air was warm, clear, and full of sunlight. He began to move and realized he was laying in thick grass at the edge of Tower Road. Just ahead he saw where the road met Can'-Ka No Rey and its sea of roses. The grass was firm beneath him. It was rough in texture but also oddly strong enough that it supported his entire body weight. He slowly rolled to one side, came to his knees, and then stood wobbly to his feet.

His knees barked in protest after another couple steps, but he managed to the road and stopped again. He ached everywhere, as if falling from some great height, and he wondered how he was able to move at all. Looking at his arm, he knew at once it was broken in at least two places, as the areas just below his elbow and lower forearm were bent and pointing in ways they shouldn't be. The pain was bright and sobering, and kept his attention from his other pains and aches.

The fog started to clear in his mind as walked again. He thought of the Crimson King and Black Thirteen and continued on the road as it bent to the right, further away from Can'-Ka No Rey. Far ahead Roland saw the outline of a man walking west and away from the field and towards the sunset. In the sky, the clouds seemed to align with the the road and the gunslinger realized he was seeing Patrick heading back towards the Federal, just as they had discussed. He was unprepared for the nostalgia that gripped him. Was he now back earlier in the same day just moments after Patrick had left? The same day he had come to the Dark Tower? Or was this some different day, or worse, one of the different trips? He looked down, and around his feet he saw sneetch shrapnel everywhere. ' _It's because I've already been here,'_ he thought. Yes, that felt right.

Roland looked to the other side of the road, towards the stone pyramid. What he saw stole his breath away. On the pyramid of stones the body of a massive spider lay broken and crumpled, with a single triangular piece of metal piercing through its head. Several of the stones that had been at the top of the pyramid had fallen off, exposing the smooth metal structure beneath, the top of which now protruded from the spider's face. The swollen body had become desiccated and looked more like charcoal than anything. The rocks remaining on the pyramid were stained with dark, thick fluid that looked to have dried a long time ago. All of the spider's legs were bent and pulled inward to its underside, yet they still twitched and moved intermittently.

Roland slowly walked around the Ram-Tete, fascinated. He saw more slight movements from the spider's body, and realized that the Crimson King was not dead—he was in fact already dead, or un-dead. Roland thought the King was now more dead than not, but that perhaps he could never be completely killed or gone. Only the legs and midsection moved in the slightest manner, likely because these were the parts of the spider's brain not turned into grey mud by the metal spike. Roland thought that even if the spider had survived somehow it was unlikely that King Red could have freed himself from the pyramid—he had been deeply impaled and upside down at that.

The gunslinger suddenly was unable to reconcile how he was still alive. His mind was clouded from timeless sleep and he was numb, empty, and exhausted. Seeing the spider did little for his disbelief, as it was hard to accept that what he was seeing was reality. He walked to the spider, watching for any trap, and grasped the protruding spike sticking out of the spider's head with his injured hand. With his good hand he picked up a slim shard of stone and pressed it against the spider's face. Very slowly the jaw opened, but only slightly, and then closed again.

"Aye, great tyrant," the gunslinger said in the High Speech, "so ends the reign of the Ram—of the _Red._ " He stood there for another moment, as if this information wouldn't fit into his head, but then his throbbing arm brought him back to reality.

Roland walked the distance back to the edge of Can'-Ka No Rey. Near the roses, his body immediately began to feel better, more alive. Roland simply fell to his knees in front of one flower, remembering the rose in the vacant lot, and leaned his face close to its delicate silk petals. The rose's song filled his soul as the soft, warm light from the flower's center washed over his face. The pain in his arm and body disappeared instantly, and Roland felt his numbness disperse and his mind awaken. _'If I could, I would just fall into the center of yon rose and stay forever.'_

Yet he knew this could not be. As he leaned towards the rose a familiar voice began to speak in his mind _an-tet._

' _Commala-come-come!'_

The voice of the Dark Tower.

' _Commala-come-come, gunslinger may ya come…'_

Yet he lingered a bit longer, however, as even though the call of the Dark Tower was great, the rose's song and warmth equaled this force.

' _Commala-come-come!'_

He looked at his gnarled right arm, feeling as if he were no longer in his own body. It hung uselessly at his side, bent like a twig half broken in two places. He looked past the rose and towards the Dark Tower, still standing forlorn in its sea of crimson, with the burden of understanding. He grasped his lame arm just below the elbow and with one fluid motion twisted it back to true. The bone ground and _crunched_ as the awkward angle realigned. Roland did the same with his forearm, his face as stolid as ever, feeling only distant and small pangs of pain as he did. He understood his arm could possibly mend itself given time, and let the thought fly from his mind. Despite being asleep for gods knew how long, he was so damned _tired,_ and felt his time running short. His arm was the least of his concerns.

He leaned into the rose a final time, closed his eyes, breathed deeply of its scent, then turned away without another glance. He walked slowly towards path among the roses absently wondering what the pain in his arm would be like once the effect of the roses wore off. Such beauty spread among such foreboding mystery, standing among—

"A stone, a rose, an unfound door," Roland said quietly. He knew this wasn't quite right, but it _felt_ right. Behind him, the massive stone pyramid that had ended the Crimson King, around him the sea of roses, each their own single world, and ahead, the unfound door.

' _Commala-come-come…gunslinger may ya come…'_

As he walked towards the Dark Tower, Roland considered what or who had saved him, chose him, to return to End-World? Ka? The Dark Tower? Some combination of both? That he would just happen to be cradled by the odd thick grass beside Tower Road while the King was impaled so close by seemed ridiculous. The grass was eerily strong and springy, but in no way could it have prevented his death. Instead, Roland thought that the force that had pulled him from the Dark Tower's landing at the top of the stairs and then pushed him after he was dragged over the cliff were the same. The gunslinger thought it was entirely possible that the Dark Tower kept him alive, and again could feel the khef they shared. He did not understand why this was and did not _want_ to understand. For some reason he was chosen, but why?

In that moment of lucidity an answer came. Like most good answers, it was simple, but explained much. It was because the Dark Tower was alive, of course, through Gan, the writer, perhaps both, it was its own being. And as its own entity, the Dark Tower was aware that Roland, the White, was for the Tower's existence, the Crimson King, for its demise. If the Tower had chosen him, it made sense that it also wanted to not only save all of existence, but itself as a living gateway as well. And now the Dark Tower was calling him—the loyal soldier and servant—to come home. What did it all mean?

 **8**

' _Commala-come-come, gunslinger may ya come…'_

As Roland Deschain once again walked the path between the roses, the flowers fully opened their scarlet petals, tilted to the clouds, and again emitted their small beams of yellow-gold light into the sky above. Where this light met the paths of the incoming beams, it was channeled in towards the Dark Tower, making each beam's path clearly visible. Roland again also noted the grey metallic base under the roses as he walked further into the red field. Joy erupted inside him and he felt as he had when he first came to the Tower, what now felt like so long ago. He began to walk faster, then faster, until he was jogging towards the Dark Tower, its voice full in his soul.

' _Commala-come-come!'_

He paused only once when he could clearly see the Crimson King's balcony. It was empty, of course, other than his eyes, which bounced and raged no longer. Instead they hovered in midair, frozen and dark, seeing no more. Roland then ran the final steps on the path of the beam he had followed since Shardick's portal. He again called the names of his comrades, speaking each loud and true. When this was done he listened for the horn blast from the Dark Tower, but none came.

' _In my dreams that blast is from my horn,'_ he recalled. He grasped Eld's horn and smiled. He thought of the names he had called and remembered their faces very well.

' _I saw them and I knew them all. And yet, dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, and blew.'_

He blew.

 **9**

The blast was as magnificent as ever, despite the damage to the bell from the lightning. As before, pulsating waves poured out of the horn and across Can'-Ka No Rey. The roses swayed slightly, causing their yellow beams of light to turn and twirl in the sky, and Roland could even see the tall grass and trees swaying as the reverberation reached beyond the end of the scarlet field.

As he lowered the horn, awestruck in the moment, he heard and felt a loud, deep _click._ A moment later he heard other _clicks_ and an occasional _clunk_ followed by sounds of ratcheting metal. As he continued towards the Tower's landing, Roland realized with a blend of horror and surprise that these sounds were coming from inside the Dark Tower.

' _Commala-come-come!'_

He came around the Tower's base to the landing and stared in amazement. Instead of the slab of concrete that had been there previously, a number of stairs that led from the red field to an elevated landing, which was now much higher than before. He knew he didn't have to count the steps to know there were nineteen, just as the picture in Sayre's office had shown. He climbed, listening to the metallic noises in the Dark Tower, which made him wonder if the Tower had somehow put these stairs in place. Or, perhaps more likely, if the steps had been hidden from him the last time he was here. Not long ago he would have thought the idea laughable, but not that long ago he had watched as a mere boy sent the mighty Crimson King todash using only a pencil eraser.

As he came to the landing a wave of nostalgia took him over when he saw his father's gun and aunt Talitha's cross by the door. He held the horn of Eld, grinning, and sounded it for the final time, relishing the power and force this made in this dim corner of the world. More _clicks_ and _clunks_ came from inside the Dark Tower. He saw that the front door was the same—ancient, swollen, and seemingly more the slate stone of the Tower's exterior than ghostwood. In the center, the old letters were still charred white and barely legible:

' _Found.'_ And of course he finally was. He was come-come-commala.

He lifted the horn of Eld from his neck and laid it with his gunna. There was a much louder and deeper _CLICK!_ from inside the Tower that also thumped inside his chest, and a flash of light flared across the door and ran all the way up the side of the Dark Tower. Roland covered his eyes as this happened and when he looked back the door looked new, leveled, and functional. Only the "Found" hieroglyphic remained the same. Roland started to reach for the large handle, and paused.

For some reason, he again thought of not needing to gain the Dark Tower. The machine of ruin had been destroyed, ending with the Crimson King's death. The White had prevailed, the true mission of his journey was completed. But then he thought of Susan Delgado, Alain, Cuthbert, Eddie, Jake, Susannah and Oy. He had promised his fallen that he would reach the top room and find a way to reset things to true, to somehow mend time, correct what had been ruined, and…

' _Commala-come-come!'_

The call and pull of the Tower was irresistible.

' _Gunslinger, won't ya come?'_

And that was all it took. He reached for the door handle, but the massive door _clicked_ open on its own and swung open, and Roland walked into the Dark Tower for the final time.

 **10**

"Welcome, Roland, thee of Eld," the Tower's voice said again as he entered.

The rotunda was exactly the same. The bright ivory walls gleamed in the light of sunset, the central pillar _thrummed_ and made its blue reflection around its greyscale circumference. To his right he saw the beginning of the stairwell and the mural wall's depiction of his life and journey. Everything seemed to be in place. Remembering the Crimson King following him todash into the Tower, he quickly closed the giant door. The sound of the rose's song quieted some, but Roland could still hear it in his mind, where it combined nicely with the Tower's own hum and calling. He knew before trying the knob that it wouldn't turn, and it did not. Everything was the same.

Except, everything was not—at least, not quite.

Roland walked to the stairwell, exhaustion now the furthest thing from his mind. The air inside the Tower was cleaner, _lighter_ somehow. Without Black Thirteen's evil the air was fresh and the light from the sunset was brighter. Before he started climbing, Roland saw the mural's depiction of him lying in his bassinet, and thought again of how this was starting over—how only now would he begin to quest the Dark Tower. As if to confirm this, he realized he could still hear his voice from a great distance, begging for mercy.

He thought of the stairs that had appeared at the landing outside and the _clinks_ from inside the Tower, and thought it best to expect other differences ahead. He started up the stairs, looking upward, and soon found something that was different than before. After every nineteen steps he came to a small landing. Each landing was bare, nondescript, but there was one without fail after every nineteen steps. This pleased him, because it was also familiar to him somehow.

He went on this way for a time, coming to rhythmically expect each small landing without looking. He quickened his pace and began to jog again, thinking of what must surely lie ahead and remembering how long it took to climb—to _survive_ —the ascent the last time he was here. Despite his excitement, the thought of making the same climb again seemed insurmountable. More stairs and landings passed and Roland became aware of the stairwell slowly starting to narrow, and that was when he stopped.

This was not because of something he saw, rather something he did not see. He was standing on one of the landings, which was as empty as the others, but he suddenly felt that he should have seen things on all of the landings. Things from his youth or quest, mayhap—something from his bassinet or when he had been an apprentice gunslinger—and he couldn't figure out why he felt that way.

But that wasn't quite it either. No, not his belongings on the landings, but in small rooms adjacent to the stairwell—like where the balconies had been before. Yes, that felt more accurate. Roland looked to the mural wall and realized there was something else that was missing from his memory. There were no adjacent rooms that he could see, but he noticed he had stopped at the same place on the stairs as the last time. In the wall he again saw Eddie in the sky carriage, but he also saw other people—or _faces_ of other people _—_ all around the scene and the entire mural. He again heard his own voice in the distance, but it was now talking about how this was "a place of death." Then the Dark Tower's voice answered from just as far away, telling him that it was his life that had made it so. This did not please him, but it was also familiar to him somehow.

He continued several steps, watching the faces, which obscured the engraving. That was when Roland realized that the door was missing from the stairwell. There was no door, no bodies, or anything else on the stairs. In fact, this was true for as far upward as he could see. The Dark Tower was far more open, or perhaps had allowed itself to be more open to him, which made the gunslinger again think of the _clinks_ and movements he heard inside the Tower from Can'-Ka No Rey. This concerned him, and it was not familiar to him at all.

A chilling thought came to him: was it possible the Dark Tower had somehow rearranged itself to him? That it somehow realigned, rotated or had otherwise changed itself? The idea was absurd, of course, but at this point, didn't he _have_ to believe it?

' _It's alive,'_ he thought again as he continued upward.

After some time he jogged again and realized the faces in the mural wall were those from the bodies on the steps he had seen the last time he had been here. This made his ascent swift, immeasurably quicker by comparison. He increased his pace to a flat run. The light dimmed and brightened as Roland made his climb around and around the expansive diameter of the Dark Tower with the last light of day hanging at the exact same position as it had before, growing and waning as he ran.

He was out of breath and slowing, but no longer cared. He would be to the top of the stairs very soon and he would not stop. His bombardier's eyes saw only open stairs ahead, narrowing as he climbed higher. The mural wall and the faces of the fallen blurred by as he ran. Soon, he saw it ahead—the great landing at the top of the stairwell. He slowed some and by the time he neared the top he was walking and working to catch his breath. The final remaining stairs were as empty as the others.

Just before stepping to the landing, Roland saw the massive replica of the Dark Tower's front door in the mural wall. It was harder to see because of the faces, but he clearly saw that the horn of Eld was now part of the engraving, shown perfectly at the Tower's entrance with the rest of his gunna. He remembered going through the door to the balcony and seeing the scarlet field and the oriel window from so high above. He saw the perfectly-detailed door handle and put out his hand to grasp it again. There was only air, however, as the door handle was no longer physically there. This time was different—the Dark Tower was different.

Roland had an idea that given all that had happened, this was likely the true version of the Dark Tower. Unlike the vast places, wheres and whens he and his ka-tet had been, the gunslinger thought he finally understood something that explained much: the Dark Tower could change its appearance and structure while still remaining in End-World. The Tower had been different to him because he did not have the sigul of Eld, and had been followed inside by the Crimson King. Now that the gunslinger was the only one in any where or when who could claim the top room, so it became open to him for that purpose.

The gunslinger stepped to the landing and saw immediately that Jake, Eddie and Oy weren't there. Had he been watching the wall, he would have seen their faces etched into the very last bit of the mural beside the image of the Tower's large door. Beside this, the faces stopped and a depiction of Roland laying on the thick grass beside Tower Road after returning to Jericho Hill had been added. But Roland was no longer watching the mural wall.

He instead was seeing the new door that was in front of him.

It was right where he expected it to be, at the back center of the landing at the top of the great stairwell, just beside the frame of sunlight where he had placed Eddie, Jake and Oy. As he took the final steps towards the door, Roland realized that he no longer heard his own cries and screams in the distance. Instead, the song of the roses and call of the Tower filled his entire being. When he at last came to the door, he expected to again see the _'found'_ symbols engraved in the center. What he saw instead brought surprise and a deep nostalgia he couldn't quite place:

Roland

Next came a sense of redemption and recognition. This wasn't another _'unfound'_ door—this was _his_ door.

 _The_ door.

Roland again sensed all of the worlds spinning near him and he was suddenly reminded of the Mohain Desert. All around him he again felt something very powerful rise in intensity to the point where the air was thick with its presence. His body cried out as if in protest, as if wishing he would stand down or walk away, but his heart, his soul, do ya, was helpless to resist. His eyes were wide and the hairs on his arm stood straight up as he grasped the handle. His skin broke out in gooseflesh and he felt faint. Yet, he breathed deeply, and still spoke the words he heard himself speak in his dreams time and time again:

** "I come! If'ee hear me, hear me well! _I come_!"

The door opened, and the gunslinger stepped through.

 **11**

There was another brilliant flash, and Roland cried out as he felt the same strong hands from Jericho Hill grab and push him forward. Somewhere, inexplicably, his mind cried out as well. This wasn't right! He should have been pulled from beyond the door—that's what was supposed to happen— _pulled_ back to the sand, to the start, to the point where his _true_ quest for the Dark Tower began. He threw his hands in front of his face so he didn't have to see the end—which was to say, the start—of everything.

"Oh, no!" Roland again heard his voice yelling, but this was much closer than before. "Please, not again! Have pity! Have mercy!" He realized with horror that he was not only hearing this again, but screaming it now as well. Somewhere nearby he heard a door close and for some reason Roland prepared to see the huge sun high above the hazy mountains, baking the cracked hardpan of the desert floor.

However, soon the _pushing_ stopped and the light faded. He was left still standing, and it was still very bright around him. Roland slowly lowered his hands from his face and gasped. ' _It's a dogan,'_ he thought, staring ahead. There was no sand, no hardpan, no crippling thirst. Instead, light of all colors shone around him, delivered by the circular oriel window and the last sunlight of day. In addition, there were stained panels of glass all around him, each the same width and each the color of one of the wizard's glams. He stood on a pink marble floor that was the same shade as the stairwell. Within the marble were lines of solid gold that aligned perfectly with each pane of colored glass. These came to the center of the room where they formed a circle, around which were golden inlays representing each Beam guardian.

The top room's entire perimeter was filled with blinking machinery, unlike anything the gunslinger had ever seen before. These machines reminded Roland of how Jake described the dogan on the outer arc of the Calla, and appeared to be in pristine condition and working perfectly. The perimeter was not quite circular—' _octanged_ ' was the closest word Roland had to describe it, but that also wasn't correct because somehow the room was composed of thirteen even angled panels, each representing one of the bends o' the rainbow. Roland saw that there were twelve panels of stained glass that enclosed the room, each a different shade of the glams, but none that was black. Instead, the center of the oriel window had a black circle of glass at the center, which faced West and the sunset.

 _'Finally I'm standing in the rainbow,'_ Roland thought, taking it all in. He strode further into the room that had eluded him his entire life. He stared fascinated through the colored glass. The last light of day flooded into the room and the gunslinger spun, looking all around him, giddy as a child at a riddling contest. The colored windows ran the entire length from the top of where the machinery ended, all the way to the ceiling. He saw the sun was still in the exact place it had been when he had first came to the scarlet field. _'It held the sun for me,'_ he thought again, and was again unaware of his ignorance.

What seemed to be thousands of lights blinked on and off all around him as he strode further into the room that he could barely believe to exist. Incredibly, after all of his expectations, dreams, years of questing, and incredible loss, Roland had only one thought: Was this it— _this_ was the top room of the Dark Tower?

 **12**

The gunslinger soon appreciated the top room's off-white ceiling, which was the same shade as the mural wall had been on the stairwell. The ivory was perfect for showing the light as it came through the oriel window and shaded panes of glass, which twinkled on the ceiling like multi-colored fireflies. So finally, after all his years of journey, Roland stood in the center of the light at sunset, completing the prophecy, and setting his soul free. He was come—by all that was, he was finally come.

He stood that way for some time, arms extended, eyes fixated on the sunlight. Then, still facing the sun, he walked forward, stood by the dogan panel, and watched the last light of day reflect off of the crimson blanket far below. The view from the top room was strikingly beautiful, and the gunslinger could still see the yellow beams of light from each rose even from this height, as were their reflections off the paths of the beams held just above the top room at the Dark Tower's apex. He watched and reveled for a long time, thought several times that he was fulfilled, but then tarried longer. Time passed and the glow of sunset shone in the gunslinger's beard stubble that had grown in over the last wheels of his long journey. Roland mused that the sun was really not much different than the center of each rose in Can'-Ka No Rey, just another yellow-orange anchor to another where that spun on the axis of the Dark Tower.

Finally, some countless time later, Roland was at last satisfied. For the first time since entering, he turned to explore the rest of the room and froze.

There was no door in the room.

Roland rubbed his eyes, sure he had missed it somehow. Yet, no matter how many times he looked, there was no door, even though he had walked through it—through _his_ door with his name on it—to enter the top room. Instead, there were only the dogan's machines and controls, and nothing else—not even sound.

' _Commala-come-come!'_ the Tower called again and again.

He slowly walked the perimeter of the top room again, holding his hand out over the dogan's instruments, gadgets and lights, starting at the blue glass pane, which was right beside the oriel window that aligned with the sunset. When he came back to the blue glass, he had not seen a door, not even an interruption in the machines and computers to suggest that a door had ever existed in the first place. Roland again looked at the sunset and forced panic back a bit longer. In all the years he had spent planning on how he would get _in_ to the Dark Tower's top room, he had never planned on how he would, or if he would, ever get _out_ of it. And now, at the end of his quest, the gunslinger didn't have the first idea of what purpose the Dark Tower's top room served, or how he could leave it.

He walked the perimeter again, this time watching the machinery. He paused when he came to a panel of six large amber blinking indicators that were set below six red lights. Below these were six dials that read from "0" on the left to "10" on the right, and below the dials was a label stuck to the off-grey metal that simply read, "Roland." The gunslinger saw that below each dial was a smaller, similar label. The first read "Rat/Fish," the second "Bat/Hare," the third "Eagle/Lion," the fourth "Dog/Horse," the fifth "Bear/Turtle," and the sixth "Elephant/Wolf." Roland noticed that the first four large indicators weren't lit or blinking as the others were, and their corresponding dial switches were turned all the way to the left—to "0." He did notice, however, the small red lights for the first four controls were blinking intermittently.

The controls for "Bear/Turtle" were different. The large amber indicator blinked on and off, its dial turned three-quarters of the way to the left—to just below "2"—and what had been the small red blinking light for the other indicators was a solid, orange glow for this Beam. Roland, who had always cursed the machines of Eddie, Jake and Susannah's wheres and whens, didn't need to think long to understand the controls. The Beams that were broken all had knobs turned to "0" with blinking red lights. The Bear/Turtle Beam hadn't been broken, but the "2" on the dial suggested just how close it had been.

Had "Bear/Turtle" been broken, the final Beam, "Elephant/Wolf," or Gan's Beam, could have no more held the enormity of the Dark Tower and the multiverse than a one-legged mutie colt was to pull a full bucca. Roland looked at the controls for Gan's Beam and found the large indicator light shining solid blue, the dial turned all the way to the right to "10," and the small orange blinking light replaced by a steady green glow.

To the right of this collection of controls was another, much larger dial. The knob was a bright polished metal surrounded by a thin, black rubber coating. There was a vertical line to the far left and right of the dial's arc, similar to the dials with the Beam names, but there were no numbers or other corresponding values. Above the dial was only one word: "Gan."

His hand flew to where his guns had hung when he heard an audible _click_ from the panel in front of him. With no other sound in the room, it had sounded quite louder than it probably was. For a moment he saw and heard nothing else, but soon noticed that the dial above "Bear/Turtle" had moved very slightly to the right, now pointing just past the "2." "It's recovering," Roland said aloud, surprised by the joy that he heard in his voice.

For a while he stood at the panel, feeling genuinely hopeful. This was odd for him, and as more time passed the sensation of victory began to fade, which was eventually replaced by the underlying panic of isolation and silence. Even the warning lights in the numerous computers made no sounds as they blinked and flashed. No matter what he did, where he stood, what he said or what he thought, the machinery's lights blinked in the same rhythm, and still there was no door.

Nothing moved.

The gunslinger saw without surprise this applied to the sun as well, as it remained in the same low point on the horizon. He walked around the room's perimeter once more as a distraction. Several moments after that, he walked it again, and several moments after that he walked once more, then again, and again. After what seemed like days had passed, Roland's panic began to dig its fingers deep into his mind. Nothing changed, made sound, or moved. Even the soft sound of air being circulated through the Dark Tower was gone, and Roland could hear nothing from the outside. The sun glared at him through the oriel window as if in mockery, still ever-so-close to setting below the horizon.

As the minutes, hours or days wore on, the irony of the situation became difficult to ignore. He had thought the Dark Tower had held the sun for him so he could come to the top room at sunset, but now with having more time to think than perhaps ever before, Roland gained clarity. Ka had not only been showing him repeatedly that he need not gain the Dark Tower to have victory, it had all but begged him to not even approach Can'-Ka No Rey. The Beams were safe, after all, would recover and regenerate over time, and the dial on the dogan panel showed this was true. Suggestions and hints had been all around leading up to coming to the Dark Tower itself, culminating with the seemingly eternal sunset. Roland had fantasized that he would come to the Dark Tower and somehow set his past to right, yet clearly the world was already healing itself without his meddling. Time was frozen at the Dark Tower, and so now was he as well. Gods, the ignorance!

Roland also thought of the door— _his_ door—and the memory of being pulled through and hearing his own screaming voice. In this foggy memory or dream, the Dark Tower had responded, telling him that his life had made it so. But, now in the silence, Roland knew that had not been the Tower's voice—he'd set his watch and warrant on it. His stomach dropped as he realized there was only one other explanation. How many times then? How many times had ka's very hands pulled him through the door? The door in his dreams? The dreams where Roland would ask how many times must he travel the never-ending cyclical quest—infinite like the loop in his…

"Navel clip," the gunslinger whispered, his eyes as round as moons. His navel clip that he had seen in his dreams from his crib, but only it had been from _here—_ in a small room off of the Dark Tower's stairwell at one of the landings that happened after every nineteen steps _._ In his mind he could hear his voice screaming again and remembered feeling insane with not knowing how many times he would travel this sickening loop like the one at the end of his navel clip—his own tet-ka can Gan.

The hands of ka had pulled him back each time, forever back to the start and the sand. And each time this had been a sign—a sigul—to accept that victory was something different than what he wanted. Each time he came back to the desert was not a punishment, but a blessing, another chance. Yet he had marched on, forever pushing on until finally this time ka itself had _pushed_ him through the door. Now he stood in the room that he had wanted, but that had no part in the victory.

"My own tet-ka can Gan," Roland mused, considering. This meant the "navel of Gan," or more commonly, "body of Gan."

So…not the hands of ka—but the hands of _Gan._ That meant the Dark Tower—in it's _true_ form, the form Roland saw now—could be a representation of Gan, Gan's will, or Gan's body. His eyes widened even more as he realized that Gan's body likely encompassed the Dark Tower—or _was_ the Dark Tower.

Tet-ka can Gan.

' _Commala-come-come!'_

And this was the last time the Dark Tower spoke to him.

 **13**

The gunslinger's mind raced with a thousand questions. If any of this were possible or true, it meant that the Tower, or Gan, had interfered to end Roland's ignorance. This was also to say that the writer, Stephen King, who was a representation of, or perhaps even a part of Gan in Keystone America, also had a part in making this true. Roland had been remanded to the Dark Tower so the cycle—or loop, do ya—would end and the Beams would regenerate. It meant stopping the cyclical quest so there was no chance that on one of the cycles of the quest the Crimson King could fell the Tower.

It also meant he was now an observer—like when he had walked through the doors on the beach and into the minds of his ka-tet. Gan, the Dark Tower, or likely both were now the vessel in which he existed, and as a passive participant. So far, nothing he could say or do changed anything that was happening, but he wondered if there was a way to come _forward_ with the Dark Tower, or Gan, as he had with the others? He closed his eyes, recalling how he had done this, and tried with all his will.

Nothing happened, and nothing moved. Some unknown time later, the very meaning of time began to lose definition, and what seemed like days could have been hours, and what could have been hours seemed like days. Much, much later, or at least so it felt, Roland broke from his pacing, a compulsion he developed to expel energy and to pass time. He attempted many more times to come forward to the Dark Tower, Gan, King, or anyone or anything else that would hear him, but nothing changed and nothing moved. He ran to where the "Beam panel" was, and mashed his hands against the blue glass. Ironically, the glass seemed not to be glass at all, but a thick, dense crystal or plastic that may as well have been stone.

"Tower!" he cried, "TOWER, HEAR ME I BEG!" This was not how it was supposed to be—it was not like in his dreams—if even that was what they were. He smashed his fists against the blue window again. The top room of the Dark Tower was supposed to hold answers—or someone or _something_ to deliver answers—but all that was here was _nothing!_ He waited for a response, any indication other than his own breathing, which, as the only thing there was to hear, was already becoming so familiar to him it was as if it wasn't really there at all. But the Dark Tower had fallen silent to him, and there was only the perpetual nothing.

Roland was so immersed in his panic that he never noticed he felt no pain in his broken arm or mutilated finger from pounding on the blue glass. In fact, there was no pain in any part of his body. He looked to the panels of blinking lights and considered the dials, remembering the "Bear/Turtle" control moving a position to the right when he had first come to the top room. Perhaps if he turned the dials all to the right all of the Beams would be restored and he could somehow leave. The gunslinger reached towards the black knob marked "Bear/Turtle" and hesitated.

What if he caused more damage or somehow brought harm to the world—or _universe_ —by moving the controls to a machine he didn't understand? He thought of the intricate balance of time and space and how small changes had yielded huge impacts in his quest in both Mid/End-World and America-side. His life's work had been to gain the Dark Tower, and he couldn't risk further harm to the multiverse. He pulled his hand away.

"TOWER!" he screamed again as claustrophobia seized him. He resumed his pacing, which helped only to quiet this hysteria by the smallest amount. After hours of walking, his mind cooled slightly and a thought came to him: if he was truly trapped in the top room, he would face death, and likely in the near future. This calmed his mind further, as it felt _right_. Much more time passed, and Roland finally sat on the marble floor with his back against the machinery. Given the state of his body, and without water, he estimated that he could survive for perhaps three days—four at the outside, and then it wouldn't matter anyway. He remembered the desert and how thirsty he had been. He could will his body to not thirst for water, but he couldn't stop its need for hydration or nutrition.

So he accepted that he would die in the room that he had sought his whole life. This relieved him and he was glad that it would be so. He thought of his younger self on Jericho Hill, facing what he thought then as certain death, and smiled. He had been willing then, and so he was now. He had earned his death. What would come would come.

He got to his feet, calmer, his head clearer with the thought of closure. He would go to the clearing and look for Eddie and Jake there. Perhaps he could find Cuthbert, Alain and Jamie as well. If he made the journey without trouble, he might even finally have his girl at the window. Roland walked back to the blue pane and beam panel, placed his hands on the edge of the machinery and gazed out to the roses and the sunset below. Three days—four at most. After a moment he walked back to the center of the room, and once again stood in the meritage of light. He stood there for some time, arms outstretched and eyes closed, thankful the Dark Tower and the Beams were safe. All that was left was to wait.

What would come would come.

 **14**

See this.

See it very well, I beg.

Here and now, barely at the cusp of sunset, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last gunslinger of our time, finally stands in the center of the Dark Tower's top room with the light from the rainbow washing over him. Outside, the sun's last rays shine over Can'-Ka No Rey and the haphazard stones and rocks that interrupt its blanket of blood-red petals. The roses' song lifts over the field, siphoned up into the sky as the remaining Beams pass overhead as they have since the prim receded.

As it has been for all of time, once again the world has moved on.

The progenitors to the line of Eld have passed, and the final heir to this ancient bloodline has fulfilled the prophecy of a gunslinger rising from the ashes of Gilead to claim the Dark Tower. A new age begins, perhaps one of cleansing and restructuring for the civilizations that lie across the expanse of In, Mid, and End-Worlds. Gone are the years of despotic rule and scheming to fell the Dark Tower, and the last of these two opposing forces find their rest in the very Tower they devoted their lives to destroy and to protect.

Hovering over the field of Can'-Ka No Rey, on a lower balcony above several broken sneetch crates, the eyes of the Crimson King hover in mid-air, frozen and dark, their life force broken upon the metallic pyramid beyond the scarlet field. Far above on the highest level of the Tower, standing in the top room and awaiting his own end, is Roland Deschain of Gilead, son of Steven.

White over Red, do ya not see it.

And all of existence says thank-ya.

* * *

Quoted citation:

* King, S. (2004). _The Dark Tower._ Hampton Falls, N.H.: Donald M. Grant, Publisher.


	10. Epilogue: Lan-Ka Shun Gan

**Epilogue**

 **Lan-Ka Shun Gan**

 _ **(An optional conclusion)**_

 **1**

' _It's almost time,'_ the gunslinger thought, blinking rapidly. He leapt up quickly, his body no longer hindered by pain. Gan's Tower had seen to that, so it had, and so much more. He leaned on the grey machine panel marked with his name. Nothing. He again paced the top room's perimeter, no longer needing to see where he was going. His boots found their way on their own now, and the smooth polish on the marble had been worn into a dull and visible path where he always walked.

Time seemed to no longer exist, except in the gunslinger's mind and with his fingers, which set to doing their trick. This included pressing each finger to his thumb on each hand, one after the other, over and over so that they rippled back and forth as they had when he had used gun shells for hypnosis. Roland stared straight ahead as he paced, his fingers flying in waves. It was how he counted now, and found that with nothing else to fill the time, he had learned the way very quickly, even allowing for the missing digits of his right hand. He had actually been surprised that the Tower hadn't "fixed" his fingers as well, as early in his arrival he had sometimes stared at his depleted hand as if waiting for new digits to sprout from the nubs like seedlings.

The numbers were only estimates he knew, and most likely incorrect, skewed by the monotony of perpetual time. Roland also understood that he was doing only that—passing endless time. Nonetheless, if his estimates were anywhere near accurate, and he supposed that were at least a good approximation, he had been in the Dark Tower's top room for five thousand, two hundred and forty-eight days since he had started counting. He chuckled when he realized the digits of this number added up to nineteen, and his fingers then quickly told him that this equated to just over fourteen years. He laughed again because he hadn't even started to mark time for what had seemed like an eternity after coming to the top room, making the true time far greater than fourteen years. Either way, counting had helped tame the bridle of insanity.

Yet, it wasn't the amount of time the gunslinger had been in the top room that fascinated him, for that was only a means of staying occupied. Rather, his greater interest became the amount of time that passed _outside_ of the Dark Tower. In the fourteen years he had been in the top room, the sun had ever so slowly set and rose again three times. This meant that each day cycle on the outside of the Dark Tower corresponded to roughly four years inside the top room. Since the Dark Tower was the supposed nexus of time, Roland had become obsessed with wondering if almost four days or fourteen years had passed since he came to the Dark Tower.

This led to considering many other factors of his existence. For example, since arriving in the top room, the gunslinger had never been hungry, thirsty, or even tired. He also no longer felt pain in his body, and he believed that the Dark Tower or Gan was somehow filling him with life—perhaps _becoming_ his life, as there was no other explanation for how he could survive. He no longer knew what it was like to yearn for sleep, food or drink, nor was he ever hot or cold, sore or relaxed. The finger on his right hand and his entire right arm had mended nicely and pain free even without a sling or support, and he had even ceased the need to make his daily squat or to pass water.

In a word, he simply _was,_ and nothing more.

 **2**

The fascination of no longer needing basic human functions was short-lived, as by then Roland had been already hopeful that he would soon meet his end. But the word "death" had become nothing more than a tease, a carrot on a string just out of his reach, and the words of the man in black echoed in his mind every time he thought of it.

' _But never for you, gunslinger…'_

After having been in the top for some unknown period of countless time, the gunslinger developed a general level of desperation, panic and insanity that was always present. He was not out of his mind, kennit, but the result of being literally closed out of reality for so long had finally begun to take its toll. After some other unknown period of time had passed after this happened, Roland returned to the Beam Panel and stared at the dials until he couldn't refrain any longer. He had not once touched the dogan's controls for fear of any harm that could come to the worlds and Beams holding them to the Dark Tower. Now, however, after so much time had passed, the temptation was unbearable.

Before he had known he had done it, the gunslinger twisted the "Bear/Turtle" dial to the right, eyes wide with anticipation. It did not move. Roland tried the other dials for the other Beams with the same result. Frustrated, he also tried the switches and the blinking indicators without success. Frustration gave way to anger, and he ran to every panel pushing, pulling, turning and flipping anything he could touch before he realized that he was powerless—merely a passive observer that still hadn't found a way to come _forward_ in the Dark Tower to somehow end this perpetual torment.

He sank to the floor. Underneath the baseline level of madness Roland knew that this made sense. There was no coming forward in the Dark Tower because he _was_ forward already. He was interfacing with the Dark Tower through the top room, although he wondered if the top room was something he could even understand. He believed the last time he climbed the Tower he had seen it in its truest form, and so he believed the same for the top room. However, he also came to know that this was as close to Gan as any human could be, and that Gan's existence and knowledge was simply be more than he could comprehend. Instead, he experienced the top room as a dogan, much as Susannah had been with Mia when there was literally nothing she could do to change what was happening.

There was nothing he could change or do to interface with the Dark Tower. He removed one of the shells from his gun belt and held it before him. Roland wondered if he could change or do anything regarding himself. He hadn't touched ammunition in all the time he had been in the top room, and it felt strange and distant to his fingers. He held the cartridge to the light of the oriel window. It was one of the only two remaining possibilities, and although his gun was on the Dark Tower's landing, there were other ways to make rounds fire.

He decided to shoot out one of the panes of glass. This would do little, he realized, as he wouldn't be able to escape that way, but it would at least destroy the barrier between himself and the outside world. It would allow for sound, wind, the rose's song, and maybe even some sanity. Of course there was a chance that the bullet wouldn't pierce the crystal-like glass, and the round could ricochet. But, what of that? By then Roland had started fantasizing about ending his own life as a final option, even though this went against everything that he had ever been taught, and it disturbed him that he could even consider it. Still, he yearned for an end more than anything else, and if that came from breaking through the glass, fine, and if it meant his life ending that would be fine too.

It wasn't hard to get a round off without a gun, but Roland knew he would have to be creative given the limited items he had to work with. He laid the bullet on the floor and carefully stood on it with his boot heel. This bent the casing slightly, increasing the pressure inside between the primer and the bullet head. Next he removed his belt and one of his boots. With his left hand he held the shell and the belt, with the belt's buckle folded back and the bar clasp positioned over the primer cap. He held this towards the blue pane and picked up the boot with his other hand heel-side up. He swung quickly and hard, striking the bar clasp dead on and driving the pin into the primer, but nothing happened.

He tried again, then a third, fourth and fifth time. He cursed under his breath, dropped his boot, and ran to the Beam Panel with the round. He turned it primer-side down, aiming at an angle away from his face and towards the glass, and brought it down square on the panel's edge, but nothing happened. He also tried this many more times with the same result, even after using several new bullets. Roland then used several bullets on the various dials, switches and levers on the dogan's panels, smashing them down on the sharp edges and button tops, but none ever fired.

He finally dropped the shells, sure that the Tower had kept them from going off, and again sat on the floor. The Tower kept the knobs and dials from moving, shells from firing, shit and piss from flowing, and _anything_ from changing. After more hours, days or weeks of thinking and no changes to anything, the plans to end his life became more specific. Finally, some untold time later, Roland decided that was the only way he could escape the Dark Tower.

He believed there was only way that he could do it, and that was to break his own neck using the dogan's sharply-angled front panels. Planning this took ample time and pleased him, since it was something new to do. The distances had to be measured exactly, for if he made even the slightest error, he knew that he would either miss completely, or only succeed in possibly maiming or even paralyzing himself.

He calculated his height to the center of his neck using his boot while lying on the floor. He did this twenty times for accuracy and because it filled time. Then he measured the distance from the edge of the machinery's front panel out into the center of the top room the same number of times, and marked where to stand using a shirt button. He would stand profile on the button and simply fall sideways, hoping that the weight of his body would be enough to break his neck as it hit the edge of the machinery. It was a crude plan, a mad plan, but it was also the _only_ plan.

More hours, days or weeks passed after he had measured for and placed the button on the floor. He had not attempted his plan because part of him still hoped that something—anything—would change or help him see his purpose in the top room. When this didn't happen and he realized that he was no longer going to starve or thirst to death, however, he decided it was time. He remembered carrying Susannah on his back as they ran ahead of the large worm monster under Castle Discordia. They had nearly died then, despite trying everything they could think of, and escaping out to the open had been the only thing that had saved them. Crafting makeshift Sterno torches as they ran had helped, but they both knew they would have never been able to stop the todash beast had they not found the exit. The torches served only to delay the inevitable.

Roland knew that he was only lighting Sterno torches in a way now in the Dark Tower, except he could find no exit. Nothing could stop what was happening, everything he did only pushed the end back some. Susannah had planned to ask him to leave her behind in those tunnels under Fedic, so that he could continue to the Dark Tower, and she had known well enough to keep one slug in her gun in case they couldn't get out.

And that did it—it was not an honorable end, but it was a humane end.

He checked his measurements three final times, and stood on the button near the middle of the floor. The gunslinger closed his eyes and found he had no final words or prayers—only the desire for an end, a way out. It proved easier to do than he thought, and he had let himself fall without another thought.

There was a mere instant where he felt peace and closure as he fell, but then he felt his body slowing, resisting, as if falling into an invisible net. He opened his eyes and saw that he was hovering several feet above the Beam Panel at an awkward angle as if suspended or stuck. Nothing he did allowed him to move closer to the panel. Finally he moved his feet forward and stood up. He tried four more times before accepting that the Dark Tower was also keeping him from dying.

That was when Roland had begun counting.

 **3**

It was all a rhythm, of course, as it had been when Cort had taught them how to count a perfect moment using only their minds. Roland discovered that counting eased him and blunted the edge of what it felt like to lose his sanity. After he failed at killing himself, Roland had sat in the middle of the top room, the last light of the day still shining over him as it had when he had arrived, and he had counted out an entire _day_ in minutes, keeping track on his fingers as he went. When all five of his left hand's fingers had marked a minute, he held up one on his right hand for every five that passed—and then ten, and then a hundred, and then a thousand.

The relief of again knowing when a day's time had passed was instant, even though time outside the Dark Tower was moving far more slowly. And so, Roland counted more days, and found that after counting many days the diurnal rhythm became like that of counting a minute—you came to just _know_ when exactly another day had passed. Once he had discovered this, he began to use his fingers more, discovering ways to calculate weeks and entire months _._ In the absence of anything else, this fulfilled Roland greatly, and he again began pacing, fingers flying, and muttering numbers as each day passed.

As even more time lapsed, he noticed that the dial to the "Bear/Turtle" Beam _clicked_ another notch to the right roughly every four months. Since the dial went from 0-9, the gunslinger calculated that it would take thirty years—at least going by time inside the Dark Tower"—for each Beam to regenerate from nothing, which—the gunslinger stopped, looked at his fingers as if to verify something, and then to the Beam's control panel.

"It's soon," he said. His own voice sounded foreign and cracked to him from barely being used. What truly connected the gunslinger to the ratio of passing time was the "Bear/Turtle" Beams' dial. Although he felt the rhythm of passing days long before, it had been the dial that had centered him to how much time had passed since he became trapped in the Dark Tower. Although it was now long ago, Roland remembered seeing the Beam Panel for the first time when he came to the top room, and watching the "Bear/Turtle" dial _click_ one notch to the right.

Although Roland assumed that Gan's Tower was preserving him and preventing his death, he also assumed that was true only for the top room. Were he still outside of the Tower he would no doubt continue to age and experience pain as he had his entire life. It was as if his life had literally been paused or stunted, so the gunslinger's obsessions about time and the idea of an end—any end—became centered on the dial that showed the "Bear/Turtle" Beam's strength.

The dial served as both a checkpoint for time passing, but also as a countdown of sorts. Roland gained knowledge and pleasure through checking his estimates of passing time when the dial _clicked_ forward. He also learned that each time the dial moved, approximately one full day had passed _outside,_ and this equated to just over four and a half years _inside._ The next time the dial _clicked,_ it would represent the start of the fourth sunset since he had come to the Dark Tower, and each sunset also served as a countdown to when the Beams would all finally be healed.

The idea of a countdown seemed more likely than not, but was nonetheless pure speculation. It was all Roland had to think of or hope for, as he found that when there was nothing—absolutely _nothing—_ that was ever different, he found it easy to hope for _anything._ As he considered this over the years he came to believe that life also continued as it had on the outside, but Roland wasn't able to experience life in that way because he was in the top room _—_ within the shroud of the dogan.

Roland now believed that he was Lan-ka shun Gan, which literally translated into "Gan's punishment," but was more commonly spoken as "Gan's prisoner" in the common vernacular. He had been imprisoned through Eld's horn, by his own free will. He had chosen the top room—to enter the living Tower's most sacred space to all of creation _—_ a room that represented Gan himself, an enormous and complex deity that Roland's mind could never experience accurately as a mere hume. Instead, Roland's prison cell _—_ the dogan _—_ became a simpler method of comprehending, although Roland felt he understood very little.

Over time, Roland believed there were two possible outcomes to this imprisonment. One was that he would remain in the top room forever—that the Dark Tower and Gan would simply allow him to continue to exist without end in the throws of madness. However, the more he considered this, the more it seemed likely that this sentence of sorts, like most others, would have to end. The Dark Tower and even Gan could also want it to end, would want to be rid of him in fact, so there could finally be balance again in the multiverse. By his calculations this end was so far in the future it was hardly worth thinking of now, but he believed this to be the most logical possibility.

Roland also believed that the Dark Tower had entered a standstill of its own—a hibernation, kennit—since he arrived where its energy only focused on the Beams' recovery. If this were true, it explained why Roland and the Dark Tower no longer shared khef, why nothing changed, and it would mean the Tower would remain in this state until the beams had fully regenerated. The gunslinger came to hope that would be the point he would be released from his prison.

The dial _clicks_ on the Beam Panel became signals and confirmations of that hope, and every four years Roland actually experienced some joy and relief when this happened. Counting time between the _clicks_ helped him remain focused on this possibility, and the next _click_ was due in very short order.

Roland stopped his pacing and knelt at the Beam Panel, watching the "Bear/Turtle" dial with desperate eyes. He felt the rhythm of time beating in his brain, and his fingers flew back and forth pressing his thumbs in perfect synchrony. Beyond the grey machinery and through the blue glass-crystal, the sun hung low in the sky, just at the cusp of sunset as it had when he came to the scarlet field so long ago—Roland's fingers stopped

It was time.

He watched the "Bear/Turtle" dial, biting his lower lip. _Finally_ it was time. But the dial didn't move. The gunslinger stared, not daring to blink or flinch. He began to wonder if something was wrong or if he had miscounted, but then the dial at last _clicked_ loudly into place. No, not something wrong, just the effect of his excitement speeding his count by a few seconds. Roland smiled and stood, leaned on the machine's grey panel, and stared out at the sunset as he had the day of his arrival. He was one step closer to knowing what would happen when the beams recovered, and he relaxed for the first time in months.

 **4**

His relief was short, however, as the usual thoughts returned to his mind. The sun would very slowly set once again, leaving a nightfall that would last for two years. The gunslinger glared at the sun, knowing that the darkness of night was still many weeks away, but that after that there would only be the blinking lights and stars to see for a very long time. Roland used his fingers to re-calculate the time it would take for all of the beams to recover since the dial had just _clicked_ a notch closer. This took a while given the length of time in consideration, and the outside cycle of night and day would repeat many more times before that time.

But a part of him still _needed_ to know how much closer it was. After another couple minutes his fingers stopped and he again looked out the oriel window—it would be just less than one hundred and fifty years from now.

He tried to imagine a world that far in the future and found he couldn't. He tried to imagine himself both in that world and inside the Dark Tower for that long, and found he couldn't do that either. He looked back to the Beam Panel and saw the other dials that were still turned to "0s"—there was so much time left the enormity of it all barely seemed to fit in his head.

Lan-ka shun Gan.

He was still standing there when the darkness finally came.


	11. Author's Afterward

**Author's Afterward**

 _ **(Justification)**_

So here we are fellow constant reader—finally at the end—whatever that means for this project.

When we first met, I said that if justification were necessary after our time together, you'd find it near the end of the story. Although I posted that in August of 2018, I had first written that statement long before, and I had no idea that the path of the story would end here. I didn't plan this path either, mind you, so feel free to credit whatever force of nature—or Tower—you'd like for how Roland's quest could have hypothetically ended. At least, until Stephen King may show us differently someday.

 _Way_ back in the beginning, I also didn't think that this would become something I so seriously pursued, or that it would take this damn long to finish. When I started, I didn't think there'd be any reason to justify whatever happened in the story as long as it resolved the time/space conflict of 1999 vs. 2018 that we talked about when we first met. Now that we've known each other for a while, however, I'm driven to write this section because a lot has changed for this project since Roland first came to the scarlet field so long ago.

To be honest, although I kept coming back to writing this over the years—my own kind of Roland-esque Dark Tower cycle do ya—my intention was to eventually finish and leave it. I didn't know anything about fanfiction, I wasn't trying to get published, and obviously the story wasn't mine, so part of me had issue with even writing anything at all. But over time I needed an outlet for my questions and a space to work through how Roland's quest _could have_ ended, but in a way that was also what he deserved and within the framework of the original series. I found this quieted the whole time/space issue somewhat, and I felt I had mostly accomplished this when _The Dark Tower_ and _It_ movies came out in 2017.

That changed everything for me. It meant I wasn't the only one thinking this way or feeling stuck in the time vacuum. I was a giddy school kid when I saw King's "last time around" tweet suggesting that the movie (and proposed TV series) would finally get done. I noticed the references and insinuations between the _Dark Tower_ and _It_ movie previews and got pumped.

Then I saw the _Dark Tower_. And damned if I didn't still feel that familiar ball in my gut. Roland was hanging out somewhere in 2017. Even though he couldn't be. Then the movie got bad press and reviews. Then there were rumors of it being dumped all together or that it needed to be completely rebooted. And just like that, I found myself back in front of the computer with a newfound intentionality that burned white hot.

All these years later, some of my enabling Tower junkie friends saw the _Dark Tower/It_ movies with me and we all tried to determine what the hell was going on. I shared this project with a couple of them to offer my take on it. It was well received, and the next thing we knew we were talking about fanfiction. And so starts my justification. I believe that since this is an extension of an existing work, people should know why I wrote what I did, and how I tried to do that without changing the original books.

This story was never meant to replace King's ending to the Dark Tower. It was only meant to suggest answers to questions that existed _because_ of the ending. I'm sure some of these questions were meant to remain unanswered, because for King's ending to work, they _had_ to remain unanswered. Nonetheless, we and Stephen King are (thankfully) alive currently in the Keystone World as I've mentioned, so as DT7's ending insinuates, Roland's "next" attempt will be successful—at least in terms of completion, but not necessarily a "happy ending."

A core justification centers on the 1999/2018 time issue. Did time stop and "reset" each time Roland was sent back, or did it continue? I've thought about that a lot because if time continued, then the issue of us being here in 2018 is actually a non-issue because Roland could still be finding his way. In addition, if time "resets" with each beginning of the quest, it violates a major rule in the series that Keystone time is unidirectional and cannot be dialed back, at least by the remaining magic and doors in Roland's world. However, this says nothing about the Dark Tower or Gan's ability to bend time however it/he/they see fit. This also supports the idea of the Tower and Gan being active characters in the story capable of making such decisions. It's a conundrum either way.

However, it seems most likely that time resets with each trip for several reasons. If not, Roland would not resume chasing the man in black in the desert because Flagg (as well as Eddie, Jake, Oy, Mordred, etc.) would still be dead. Or, Roland might encounter a "younger" version of himself following the same path such as when Eddie or Jake would see themselves in Keystone New York where there are no "do-overs." This also suggests that "Keystone time" wouldn't simply continue on until Roland finds a way past the mess of not having his horn unless the Tower or Gan decided that to be the case.

Because of this theory, I decided to see what would happen if Roland came to the Dark Tower, at some point with his horn as implied in the original ending. To me it meant having to face a very different Dark Tower than on every other trip without changing core aspects to the original story. Otherwise Roland's "final" journey to the Dark Tower would be as "routine" as his other efforts, and this is why I saw Roland finding his horn instead of having it in the beginning (but more on that later). Thus, perhaps the largest issue was that there would have to be an ending that Stephen King _wouldn't_ want in order to resolve the "we can't exist in 2018" argument. In fact, _any_ ending that differed from King's wouldn't be as fitting, yet there would have to be another ending for the above reasons.

That's an interesting paradox, especially considering King said that we _couldn't_ have that closure because the pleasure is in the journey, that we "never learn" as readers, and that there "are no happy endings." And you know what? He's absolutely right. So, I did my best to honor that. Hopefully it's not too "happy," while also being a little terrifying and even satisfying—although not to the reader necessarily, but in regards to ka as a wheel or life-cycle.

Now that we got that taken cleared up, the other areas I feel I need to justify are the Crimson King, Black Thirteen, the horn of Eld, the Dark Tower as an entity, the return to Jericho Hill, and the Tower's top room. I believe this necessary because this project suggests changes to what could be next for Roland, but it changes nothing about the existing (original) plot. So for all of the following items, I believe they all still function as intended by Stephen King in the series, although they are certainly different in terms of closure.

To that end, I imagine the fact the Crimson King was such a prominent antagonist would grate Stephen King's nerves. However, there are several reasons I included the Crimson King at all. First, Patrick was the real victor over Los in the DT books, and secondly, the Crimson King is the master of todash space and he was not dead, only displaced (to todash space) by Patrick. This was not something I wanted to leave unresolved (or unintentionally mock) for Roland's final trip. In addition, while Stephen King had been adamant about avoiding an epic "battle" of sorts at the story's finale (per his own thoughts in the final three novels), this also provided closure to the fact that the King was not dead, and kept Roland from killing him.

Ok, you choked it out of me: there was also a part of me that wanted to see the Red King as we had seen Mordred—fearless, ruthless, and obsessed with power—and the gunslinger being unable to kill him. I also saw the King's spider form (that I envisioned as the Ram-Tete) as an opportunity to pay homage to Roland being unable to kill him, so the prophecy remained in tact.

Trying to stay true to the Dark Tower was difficult, and as King told us all, the Dark Tower is "dark" to him. It turns out this is true for me as well, and it _should_ be. Thus, my goal was not to explain the Dark Tower's actions or intentions, but rather let it interface with Roland and the Crimson King as the mysterious, ominous, and representation of Gan that it is. In the series its will was nearly always served as a character, so I wanted to honor that as well.

As for the Dark Tower's interior, and in this case, how it differs somewhat from King's delivery, my justification is twofold. First, it seemed fitting that Roland should experience a different or "truer" Dark Tower with the horn than in his other attempts. This also allows the "Gan Tower" to remain an active character that is capable of acting, choosing and even changing—a sort of combination lock that can move its own internal workings however it needs in order to ensure its will is done. Secondly, I didn't want the only new material in this project to be the Tower's top room and the Jericho Hill scenes...that would have made for just boring reading. Naturally I had to borrow and cite some of King's original material for that to happen and to make it "flow" and mesh with the original series (such as the dialogue between Roland and Cuthbert at Jericho Hill and Roland's roll call in Can'-Ka No Rey, for example).

The horn of Eld was also a little like this. It's insinuated that the gunslinger had been to the Dark Tower many times even before readers met him. It just so happens that the time that we tag along on his quest he just "happens" to wind up with his horn when he is again sent back at the desert. With that in mind, I just couldn't see a path for Roland that was as exciting if he came to the Dark Tower with the horn. Instead, I borrowed from Stephen King's premise about finding the best "pleasure of the journey" and kept this concealed a bit longer. To stay true to this I had to deliver the horn in a way that _didn't_ include Roland having it in the beginning—or that would just be plain cheating.

Therefore, Jericho Hill was necessary to the story. Of course, there are numerous other ways for Roland to find the horn, and this was where I strayed most from the original storyline, but I don't think this _changed_ the original storyline. Plus, I wanted the process of bringing the horn into the tale again to be rousing—a "call back" to a previous critical point in Roland's life, with the same twists and turns we came to expect in the Tower books as they skip ahead and back to assorted wheres and whens to resolve plotlines. Bert laughing to his death in the original story was the perfect opportunity to do that without altering the story. Plus—being the only person to see Roland "happen" upon the battle as an adult and then to be the one to drop the horn for him was just something that I could see Bert doing as a final service to the Tower quest.

I understood a couple things heading into the final chapter and epilogue regarding the Tower's top room: the ending must pay homage to the shock King gave us, I had to respect the Dark Tower's autonomy, and I couldn't kill Roland. Now, I like him as much as anyone, but it crossed my mind for him to be killed at the top of the Tower for his continued ignorant persistence that served no purpose other than self-centeredness. Roland certainly earned his death and may have even wanted it. But I didn't think the Tower thought he _deserved_ it, and there was also the business of _"…but never for you gunslinger"_ to consider. And from that came the idea that the Tower would sustain him forever…maybe.

As for the epilogue, although not stated, it too pays tribute to King's admonition that "you can stop here" instead of reading further, but that we also can't resist continuing on. I don't care who you are—no one that read the Dark Tower series heeded King's warning. We all went straight through the Coda, and got kicked in the ass for it. That's the glory of it, that's why we all deserved the consequences, and that's probably why you are still reading this too-long justification and why I'm still writing the damn thing.

I also wanted to try (key word) to add some extra "O. Henry" to the epilogue as King did in his Coda. Is Roland trapped forever, or will he find a way out after the Beams are restored? Will they be restored? Would Roland leave if he could at that point or would he experience the Dark Tower differently and stay? Would/could he become closer to Gan or the workings of the multiverse? What will the next age of In, Mid and End-World be like either way, and what would this mean for gunslingers as a creed? This made more sense to me than a stated final destiny for Roland, because it tips the hat to King's warning, while it also refers back to life—or ka—being an endless wheel, which seems to be the true crux of the entire series.

And there you have it, fellow constant reader. I've stated my case, and you may make your judgment. Love or hate it, _writer_ or not, I finally have my peace. Now that this is finished I can't help but wonder if that weird feeling I had about being in the present with Roland stuck in 1999 was what King wanted for us constant readers all along.

Dental floss, ye ken.

I leave you now so that I can finally exit my own top room prison and put this project to bed. I wish you well, and I thank you for your time. So starts my wait for the Dark Tower's premier on Amazon at some point in the future...or wherever else it may finally land.

May you have long days, and pleasant nights.

 _Holmsie,_

 _Harrisburg, Pennsylvania_

 _October 26, 2011_

 _(Revised in Middletown, Pennsylvania, October 22, 2018)_


End file.
